Die Softly
by Really Really Long PenName Guy
Summary: All Danny wanted was a few innocent pictures of the cheerleaders showering. He hadn't meant to capture one of them being murdered.
1. Prologue

HI! This is a Danny Phantom version of

_Die Softly_, by Christopher Pike

It's a really good book. I hope you enjoy this story. I'll update soon :)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

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**_In the End_**

Danny Fenton was dreaming when his mother knocked on his bedroom door to tell him a police sergeant was on the phone. Danny had received a call earlier that morning, so he had already been awaked once. The first call had been from a friend, and after talking to the friend, Danny had unplugged the phone in his room and gone back to sleep.

In his dream Danny and several of his friends were Old West pioneers, who were crossing a desert on horseback. The glaring sun was burning into the tops of their skulls. They were out of water. Two of their horses had died and the others were ready to drop. Danny felt far too weak to use his ghost powers. It was a hellish situation. Danny knew that the flies that buzzed around his face were just waiting until he could no longer brush them away.

They spotted a little shade beneath a dusty cliff and dismounted. While resting and trying to figure out where to look for water, another of their horses collapsed. Everyone fell silent and stared stonily at one another. There were six of them: Danny's best friends Sam and Tucker; Danny's favorite fantasy, Paulina; Paulina's boyfriend, Dash; and Star, head cheerleader and Paulina's best friend. The fact that a girl whom he knew to be a cheerleader was part of an Old West expedition didn't seem unusual in the least.

One and all they sensed their doom closing in on them. There was no sign of shade across the wide parched plain, but then suddenly a huge black shadow like that of a giant Grim Reaper took shape far to the south. It was in the form of a dust cloud. They may have seen it with their eyes; they may have only sensed it in their hearts. In dreams it is often hard to tell the difference. In either case, something was coming out of the south, and it frightened them.

But what this thing turned out to be was Roger Foley, Tucker's brother. He came riding up on a white horse, and looked fresh, neither tired nor dusty. He had supplies with him, and his canteens were full. They accepted them gratefully, and Roger smiled at them as he dismounted. He wanted to know how they had gotten lost.

"You're far south of Amity Park," he said.

"How far south?" Danny asked. Amity Park was home—it was where they had all grown up. That fact didn't strike them as unusual, either.

But something did trouble Danny. The water in Roger's canteen tasted good but it did nothing to quench his thirst. He took another gulp, and still another, without experiencing any satisfaction. It was as if his body were pricked with a million invisible holes that allowed the liquid to escape the instant he took it in. Or else the water was invisible, unreal, and he were only hallucinating that someone had come to their rescue. Also, Danny couldn't completely focus his eyes on Roger.

"Hundreds of miles south," Roger said. "You're in the middle of nowhere."

"How do we get out of here?" Tucker asked.

Roger turned and stared at his brother. Sorrow touched his features. "Don't you know?" Roger asked.

"No."

"Do you have anything to eat?" Star asked. Star had been Roger's girlfriend—before. That was another odd thing—Danny couldn't remember why they had broken up, although he sensed it had been something important.

Roger brightened at the question. "I have cookies," he said. (A/N: IM SORRY! –laughing a bit- I couldn't help but put the cookies part in. I originally planned not to write it, but it needed to be there. :D)

Star smiled. "What kind of cookies?"

Roger reached for his saddlebag. "Your favorites."

"Great," Star said, taking gulp after gulp from the canteen. She, too, seemed to be having trouble satisfying her thirst.

They sat in the shade of the cliff and ate Roger's cookies. They were very sweet and only aggravated Danny's thirst—he took only a few crumbs. They tried to get Roger to tell them more about which direction they should head to get out of the desert, but his answers were vague. After a while Danny noticed that none of the flies were pestering Roger.

"Roger," Danny asked. "Where did you come from?"

Roger nodded south. "From that way."

"And what's out there?" Danny asked.

Roger gave him a long look. "Some say the end of the world."

Danny chuckled. "Seriously."

Roger sat up and looked at his brother, Tucker. "It's good to see you again, buddy," Roger said.

Tucker became thoughtful, and lines creased his forehead. "I haven't seen you in a long time," Tucker whispered.

"Yeah, you have," Danny said. "We saw Roger just the other—When did we see you last, Roger?"

Roger stood up suddenly. "I better be on my way."

Tucker jumped up. "Wait. You just got here. I want to talk to you. I haven't talked to you in six months."

They all fell silent and thought about Tucker's comment. It _was _true that none of them had spoken to Roger in six months. It was up to Danny to figure out why they hadn't. He knew the evidence must be right in front of him. They sun was shining directly onto Roger's forehead but there wasn't a drop of sweat on his skin. Indeed, the sun could have been shining right through him. For the first time Danny noticed that Roger cast no shadow on the ground.

"Roger," Danny said, getting up slowly. "Weren't you in a bad car accident a while back?" They were in the Old West but he knew about cars—and that, too, was OK.

Roger climbed back on his horse and nodded gravely. "Yeah."

"You were killed," Tucker said, paling.

Roger looked down at the parched, baked earth. "Yeah, I died all right."

"Then how can you be here if you're dead?" Star asked, sounding bitchy and frightened at the same time.

Roger flashed a brief grin at the question. He scanned the surrounding desolation. "You'd be better off asking why you're here," Roger said.

"What do you mean?" Tucker asked.

In response Roger began to pull off his leather gloves. Like the rest of them, he was clad from head to toe in leather chaps, blue jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a dark cotton bandana. Like them, all they could really see was his face.

Roger took off his right glove slowly, finger by finger. When he finished and help up his hand, Star let out a bloodcurdling scream.

His hand was nothing but bones. He was a skeleton.

"This desert just sucks the life out of you," Roger said sadly, studying his bony fingers. Then he turned to Tucker again. "But the desert isn't to blame. The desert's just a place."

Tucker moved to his brother and grasped Roger's gloved hand. "How do we get out of here?" he asked anxiously.

"How did you get here?" Roger asked. "If you know that, you can get out." He studied the group. "Some of you, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Star asked, and now she sounded really scared, and not just because her old boyfriend had come back from the dead. She was worried about herself and stood shaking in her boots. Perhaps it was the rattling sound of her shaking that had her spooked.

"Take off your gloves, Star," Roger said.

Star took a step back. "No."

"Roll up the sleeves of your shirt," Roger said, showing no pity. "Go ahead, Star."

"No," she cried, I'm not like you."

Dash, who had so far remained silent, grabbed Star from behind. She screamed and tried to squirm free, but not before Dash had ripped off one of her gloves. Then she screamed again, and this time couldn't stop.

Her hand had no flesh. It was nothing but bone.

"She's a monster," Dash swore.

"Get her away from us," Sam cried.

"Look at your own bodies," said Roger.

Dash and Sam backed hurriedly away from each other, and then froze. Neither of them wanted to look at their bodies, or what was left of them. But Tucker bravely ripped off his gloves.

He had flesh underneath, but it was covered in blood.

"What did I do?" Tucker cried in anguish. "Did I kill somebody? Did I kill Star?"

Roger ignored him for a moment. Instead he turned to Danny and Paulina. "Don't you want to see the real you?" Roger asked Danny. "Wasn't that always your goal?"

Danny paled. Was Roger implying that he knew about his powers? If so, who else knew? Why was this so complicating?

Danny nodded but said nothing. He knew he was nothing but dead bone beneath his clothes. He could feel the bareness inside without looking. Nevertheless, he began to pull off his glove. It was Paulina who stopped him—Paulina, whom he'd had a crush on since he was a kid.

"Let me do it for you," she said. "And you can do it for me." She took a breath and looked at the others. "It will be easier that way."

Paulina began to take off his right glove.

He took off hers—

"Danny?" his mother called.

Danny opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He was instantly awake, with the feeling Jazz was about to burst through the door. He sighed, remembering she had gone off to college two years ago. Annoying and overprotective as she was, he missed her terribly. "What?"

"May I come in?"

"Yeah," he said.

His mother opened the door. A glance at her told him she hadn't slept the previous night. There was a deep shadow across her eyes. It was something of a miracle _he _had slept at all, after what had happened.

"There's a Sergeant Fitzsimmons on the phone," she said. "He wants to talk to you."

Danny sat up. "All right. I'll talk to him on my phone."

His mother put her hand to her cheek, where it trembled. "Maybe you shouldn't," she said.

"Why not?"

"Maybe you should talk to a lawyer first."

"Don't worry. It'll be OK."

His mother nodded, and a tear formed in the corner of her eye. She grimaced. "Those poor kids. How did this all happen?"

"I suppose that's what Fitzsimmons wants to find out."

"But he already talked to you last night. Why's he calling again so soon?"

Danny shrugged. "It was late. We hardly went over anything."

"I know it wasn't your fault," she said quickly, wiping the tear from her cheek.

Danny glanced at the black phone sitting on the floor beside his bed. "I probably shouldn't keep him waiting. Could you hang up the other phone for me?"

She nodded. "Be careful, honey" was all she said before leaving.

Danny carefully picked up his receiver. He didn't say anything until he heard his mother put down the phone in her room. Fitzsimmons spoke first.

"You there, Daniel?"

"I prefer Danny."

"OK, Danny. How are you this morning?"

"Fine," Danny said. Big burly Fitzsimmons sounded cheerful enough. Danny had noticed that about him right away, when they had met the day before, when they'd had only one body to explain. Fitzsimmons obviously liked being a cop. He liked doing cop things. Danny figured Fitzsimmons probably watched a lot of cop shows on TV.

"That's good," Fitzsimmons said. "I didn't wake you, did I? Your mom said you might be asleep."

"I was just lying here."

"I always used to sleep in on Saturdays when I was a kid. That was in Boston. Did you know I was from the East?"

Fitzsimmons fit well average person's stereo-type of the ruddy-faced Irish cop. "I guess," Danny said.

"Do you work, Danny?"

"Yeah."

"Part-time job?"

"I go to school and work full-time at a manufacturing warehouse."

"What do you make?"

Danny hesitated. Fitzsimmons wasn't making idle conversation, and Danny knew there was no point in lying. The sergeant could easily check out the facts. "We assemble electronic boards, mostly for VCRs and stuff," Danny said.

"Really? I thought all that stuff was made it Japan."

"The boards are manufactured in Taiwan. We just assemble them."

"Do you know a lot about electronics?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"I know more about photography."

"That's what I hear. They tell me you're a great photographer."

"I guess," Danny said.

Fitzsimmons paused. "What's your schedule look like today?"

"Why?"

"I want you to come down to the station. We've got to talk about what happened."

"I can't come in right now," Danny said.

"Why not?"

"I have someone coming over."

"Who?"

"A friend," he said evasively, and then added, "I might be able to come in later."

"I think you should come in now. This is a very serious situation, and I don't think it's over yet. I think you know what I mean."

Danny spoke carefully. "There's so one else to catch."

"Are you sure of that, Danny?"

Danny sat for a moment and listened to his heartbeat. It sounded awfully loud for a guy who felt so sure of himself. "Why can't we just talk on the phone?" he asked again. Of course Danny knew the answer to that. Fitzsimmons wanted Danny right in front of him when he grilled him. That way it would be easy to tell when he lied.

"How did you sleep last night?" Fitzsimmons asked.

All of a sudden Danny's throat felt tight. "I've slept better."

Fitzsimmons said sympathetically, "It must be tough losing friends like that. It must be even tougher for the families. I talked to a couple of them this morning. Everybody's extremely upset, and they're all terribly confused. I think it could help everybody if we understood how it began. Could you tell me that, Danny?"

Danny closed his eyes and swallowed. His throat was dry. Bone dry. His dream flashed back right then. Roger Foley riding out of the south like the Grim Reaper on a white horse. Riding toward his friends—skeletons, screaming under a blazing sun.

"Maybe," Danny whispered. "But only on he phone."

"You're a stubborn young lad."

"I'm just tired."

Fizsimmons sighed. "Have it your way then. Where should we begin?"

"With Roger Foley," Danny blurted out.

"Who's that? Is he related to Tucker Foley? Wait, isn't he that boy who died six months ago in a car crash?"

"Yeah."

"What does that have to do with any of this?"

"I don't know," Danny said.

"Then why did you bring him up?"

"I had a dream about him last night."

"Danny—"

"He died at that same cliff. Don't you remember?"

Fizsimmons was silent for a full ten seconds. "But you don't know how this relates to what happened yesterday?"

"No. I'm sorry."

"Tell me what you do know. How did you get involved in all this?"

"I wanted to take pictures of the cheerleaders."

"Yeah."

Danny cleared his throat. "I wanted to take nude pictures of them—if you know what I mean."

"Without their knowing?" Fitzsimmons guessed correctly.

"Yeah."

Fitzsimmons cleared his throat. He might even be smiling. Danny couldn't be sure. All he said was "Tell me the whole story."


	2. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

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His blood was hot. His thoughts were naughty. Outside, in front of the gymnasium, were Casper High's cheerleaders, posing prettily for Danny's camera. Inside his head were the same cheerleaders, only in his imagination they were even prettier—they were naked. _Soon_ they would be naked. It would be that night that he would set hs plan into motion.

His name was Danny Fenton, and if someone had asked him who he was, he would have said "a nobody." He was eighteen, close to nineteen, and in six weeks he was to graduate from high school. He didn't tell himself he was handsome like some guys did. The girls thought the opposite, however, but Danny didn't notice.

He stood six-foot-one and weighed one-hundred-fifteen pounds. His black hair was long, messy as ever. He had been on dates before, but the girls just didn't seem to appeal to him.

Yet, Danny had a skill that set him apart from most kids. I mean, aside from being half-ghost. He was an excellent photographer. His mother had given him his first camera when he was twelve—an inexpensive Polaroid that had brought him more pleasure than anything in his life. The camera had come on Christmas, and by New Year's Day he had shot over three hundred pictures—a significant number considering how expensive Polaroid film was. He photographed everything—the Christmas tree, the neighbor's dog, and people—hundreds of people. From the start it was people's faces and bodies that intrigued him the most, and even at the tender age of twelve, he thought women's bodies were the ultimate subjects.

But he wasn't a dirty-minded little snot. He had talent. He had a knack for catching a person's _look_—the particular individual expression or stance that summed up who he or she really was. For example, only two days after that Christmas, he photographed his mother drinking her coffee before leaving for work. His mother hated her job—she was a secretary for a women-hating general contractor (she'd refused to continue ghost hunting after an accident with the Portal killed Jack)—but she loved her coffee. Danny's picture caught the unhappy lines of her face as she contemplated another week of harassment, just as it showed her hugging her warm cup with a strength that said her hard life was not without it's small pleasures. The picture _was_ her. She herself said as much when she saw it—just before she ordered him not to take any more pictures of her.That was one thing Danny was to realize at an early age. Catching people on film as they really were was not always flattering or desirable.

At present Danny was photographing the cheerleaders for the school yearbook. The pictures were late; it was the last week in April and they should have been in at the end of March. A childhood friend of Danny's, Samantha "Sam" Manson, had shot the original pictures but had messed them up. Danny wasn't sure if she had done it because she was a lousy photographer—which she was—or because Sam hated the cheerleaders. The rah-rah girls had all come out looking like out-of-focus hookers. The jerks on the yearbook staff had demanded new pictures and ordered Danny onto the scene. Their arrogant tone had annoyed Danny, and he probably would have cursed them out if they hadn't offered such a large amount of money.

Yet in a small way, he felt his life was about to come more into focus. It had been Sam, after hearing he was going to be redoing her shoot, who had given Danny the idea of planting a camera in the girls' showers.

_"Fix it up in the corner with an automatic timer on it,"_ Sam had said. _"I can show you the perfect spot. Have it start shooting when they're in the showers. We can save the pictures and distribute them at the graduation party in June. It'll be a nice payback for all the garbage we've had to put up with from those girls the last four years."_

Of course, Sam had probably just been kidding, but it got Danny thinking. All kinds of possibilities filled his head. All kinds of bodies. Naked bodies.

"Are you going to make me look pretty?" Paulina Sanchez asked Danny, startling him. She had sneaked up behind him and almost made him drop his camera. She was the last cheerleader out of the locker room. The others were hanging out in the shade of the gymnasium, talking about how far-out they were.

Danny smiled. "That shouldn't be too hard."

Paulina slid around in front of him. She was always sliding from one place to another. She was one graceful girl, and he meant what he had said. All he had to do was remember to take off the lens cap and she'd look pretty. Paulina was the only cheerleader he thought was worth a damn.

"How many pictures are you going to take?" Paulina asked.

"Three rolls should be enough," Danny said. "I'll shoot some out here on the grass in front of the gym, like you're practicing. Then I thought we could go to different places on campus and take individual shots."

Paulina nodded to his camera. "What kind is that?"

"A Nikon Twenty-twenty." He added, "It cost a lot of money."

"Did your mom buy it for you?"

"I paid for it myself."

Paulina nodded her approval. "You still working at the electronic plant on Farmer's?"

"Yeah," he replied, pleased she had remembered. Danny had shot Paulina before, when she was putting together a portfolio for modeling agencies in Los Angeles. He'd enjoyed the job—he hadn't wanted to take her money but she'd insisted. She was a natural subject, very expressive. She had a way of pouting that made one want to hug and comfort her; then in the next moment she could curl up her lip and look like a vampire preparing for a bite.

Paulina had been impressed with his photos. Yet he still wanted to redo her portfolio, and not just for having the pleasure of having her in the center of his lens again. Even though he had caught her in a dozen different moods, he felt he hadn't caught the _real_ Paulina yet.

_Maybe her clothes got in the way_, Danny thought.

He didn't dwell on the idea. It made him feel guilty.

"What hours do you work?" Paulina asked.

"Swing shift," Danny said. "Four to twelve-thirty. Six to two-thirty on Thursdays and Fridays."

"Whew. Tonight's Thursday. I don't see how you make it into school on Fridays. There's no way I could do that."

"I take drugs," Danny said.

Paulina blinked. "Really?"

Danny grinned. "Just kidding." he had smoked dope exactly twice, but stopped when he realized it was called dope for a reason. Danny was a C-minus student and was close to failing history and English. He needed what brains he had.

Paulina's boyfriend was Dash Baxter. He had graduated the year before. He was big and stupid and very nasty—he had played football until his junior year when he was kicked off the team for unsportsmanlike behavior. After an unfavorable call, he had picked up a football and heaved it hard into a ref's crotch. Danny had caught the incident on film, but it was a picture he kept in his bedroom closet. Danny lowered his head and fiddled with his camera.

"We should get started," he muttered.

Paulina put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

Paulina laughed. "I can't figure you out."

Danny was amazed she'd even bothered trying to understand him. He raised his head. "What's there to figure out?" he asked. "What you see is what you get."

She let go of him but held his eye for a moment, a grin on her face still. "I don't know about that."

_Is she flirting with me?_

"Hey," Star Barnscull called out. Star was the head cheerleader and the embodiment of all the cliches of that title. She was blond, bitchy, beautiful, and capable of great cruelity. She was also Paulina's best friend. They were always together. "I'm beginning to sweat," Star said. "Let's get started. Quit stroking him, Paulina."

The remark hurt Danny's feelings. But probably Paulina _had_ been flirting with him just so he'd take special care in photographing her. Paulina glanced over at Star and gave her a friendly sneer.

"A little sweat might make it look like you've been working hard," Paulina said.

Star gave a similiar sneer. "Hard at what?"

"Hard at what you're good at," Paulina said.

"That could be many things," Star said with a nasty smile. Then she paused to regard Danny. Despite her popularity—which was not equivalent to likability—Star did not have one particular boyfriend. Her one and only, Roger Foley, had died in that car crash six months ago. Not that Star even appeared to go into deep mourning. Rumor had her sleeping with half the football team.

"What kind of film have you got in that camera?" Star asked.

"One hundred," Danny said. "I have a roll of two hundred for the interior shots. Why?"

"I just don't want to have to do this over again," Star, who probably knew nothing about film speeds, said.

When Danny had done Paulina's portfolio, he had also done one for Star. If Paulina was going to be a model, then Star had to be one too. But maybe the reverse was true. It might have been Star's idea to be models. She did appear to be bossier. Danny didn't understand what Paulina saw in her.

Star hadn't liked the pictures Danny took of her—at least that had been her excuse for not paying him. She hadn't even compensated him for the cost of the film. He knew he should've demanded the money, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew that he had done a good job. Star was every bit as pretty as Paulina. With her bright blond hair and big bust, she had a classic California girl beach look. Yet, she didn't have Paulina's striking eyes, and Danny knew how that feature, more than any other, prevented one from transferring well to print. The camera simply wasn't kind to Star. He had done everything he could with lighting and makeup suggestions to help her out. But he had delivered the prints to the girls at the same time, and Star had seen Paulina's first. She felt cheated when she saw her own. That had been three months ago, and Star never even glanced at him when she passed him in the hall.

"We'll get some good pictures," Danny told Star, thinking how much he would enjoy spreading a nude photo of her at the graduation party. Star continued to stare at him, her face now cold.

"Just be sure of it, Fenton," she said.

They got to work. Danny took his first roll of group shots with his camera fastened to the top of a tripod. The cheerleader squad was made up of six girls. They were difficult from the word go. With the exception of Paulina, every time Danny got a shot ready, they trid to outdo each other wth the size of their smiles. They looked like department store manniquins with toothpicks propping up their cheeks. He told them their natural beauty was more winning than anything they could manufacture, but they acted as if he were an idiot and continued to fake their smiled. Then, when he stared on the second roll, Paulina became an unintentional problem. She had a spring allergy and when she started sneezing she couldn't stop. The other girls thought it was funny for a few minutes, then they became impatient. Danny was proud of Paulina. She simply ignored them and went on sneezing.

Danny took group pictures in front of the gym, inside the gym, and on the football field. In reality he needed only two or three good shots. He had several pictures at home of the girls cheering at a football game. He would add a couple of those to the ones he was taking and the yearbook staff would be happy.

By three o'clock all he had left to do was get a single shot of each girl. He tried being creative. He put one girl cross-legged on a teacher's desk, reading _Romeo and Juliet_. Another he had changing a tire in the auto shop. There was a janitor working; they were able to get in anyplace they wanted. He had another cheerleader climb a tree. The girls finally began to loosen up and stopped acting as if they were doing him a favor by posing for him.

Danny was just about to shoot Paulina and Star's personal portrait when Dash Baxter, Paulina's boyfriend, pulled up in his beat-up red Fiat. From the exhaust, Danny guessed the car was burning at least a quart of oil a day. Dash didn't stop at the parking lot—he plowed right across the grass to the front of the gymnasium. Insolent as always. Star brightened when she saw him, and Paulina hardly reacted at all. That was the one thing Danny had noticed when Dash was around the two girls. Star always showed him more attention than Paulina did. He could have been Star's boyfriend, for all anyone could tell.

"What are you doing?" Dash growled.

"We're acting out our fantasies in front of Danny," Star said.

Dash scowled at him. "Are you taking their pictures?"

_No, I'm using my camera to test their reflexes_, Danny thought.

"I'll be done in a few minutes," he muttered out loud instead.

"Don't hurry us," Paulina said to Dash. "I told you not to come 'til later."

"Yeah," Star said, changing her tone. "Go drive your car around the block a few times, and don't bother us."

Dash acted slightly annoyed, but didn't defend himself. "I brought the box of cookies," he said. "I have them in the trunk. You said you wanted them."

Star was suddenly a sweetheart again. She clapped herhands and jumped in the air. She hurried to Dannys side. "I know how you can shoot me and Paulina," she said, excited. "Put us in the home ex room with the cookies. We'll splash ourselves with white flour and put on white caps. We'll go in the yearbook as the Sugar Sisters."

Danny was familiar with the reference. During football season the past fall, Star and Paulina had sold home-baked cookies to raise money for the squad. Practically every person in school had bought some because Star had a way of making people feel obligated to her. Their venture had been a big success. People had enjoyed the cookies and the squad had been able to par for whatever it was they needed. It was during this time that Paulina and Star had earned the nickname the Sugar Sisters. But then Star had continued to sell more cookies, for no charitable purpose except to line Star's purse. To top it off, the new cookies were not so good as the first ones. The school administration had finally put a halt to Star's activity, angering her.

All this had occured only a short while afterRoger Foley, Star's boyfriend, had run off the side of a nearby cliff in his car.

"The pictures are supposed to be individual shots like the others I just did," Danny said. "But if you really want—"

"I don't think it's a good idea," Paulina interrupted.

Star turned on her. "Why not?"

"I don't want flour all over my clothes," Paulina said.

"Then we'll skip the flour part." Star took a step closer to Paulina. "What's the matter? Don't you like the nickname, Paulina?"

Paulina just stared at her. "I like it just fine, Star."

"The cookies are in the trunk," Dash said again.

"We know they're in the trunk, idiot," Star said.

"Yeah, well, I just thought you should know," Dash said.

"Are you having another bake sale?" Danny asked.

"Yeah," Star snapped, still intent on Paulina.

"What for?" Danny asked.

"We need the money," Star said coolly. "What do you say, Paulina?"

Paulina shrugged. "I already said all right."

They went to the home ec room. The janitor let them in, but he warned them to hurry up because he was leaving soon. Dash followed them like a well-trained mule, toting their boxes of cookies. There seemed to be quite a few of them. Star had him spread them over the table and then got aprons and caps for Paulina and herself. Star had lied about using the flour. She immediately tossed a handful over Paulina's head. Paulina no longer seemed to care. She threw a cupful in Star's face, and the two girls bust out laughing. Danny took his picture right then. He knew it would be a good one. The Sugar Sisters had been immortalized.

But if Paulina had been sneezing before, now her nose was running continuously. The flour had gotten up her nostrils. Star thought it was hysterical, but Dash was worried about his car.

"All this flour's going to mess up my seats," he said, carrying the cookies back to the car, good mule that he was. Apparently Star had decided to take them home and bring them to school the next day. Danny found the whole matter completely illogical. He felt somewhat elated, however. He may have disliked most of the girls on the squad, but they were the _in_ people and he had gotten to spend some time with them.

"It's not going to mess up anything," Paulina said. "We'll change before we leave."

"Well, what about your nose?" Dash asked as if it were a serious problem.

Paulina sneezed. "What about it?"

"My seats are brand-new," Dash said.

Paulina gave an exasperated groan. "Fine. Danny can give me a ride home. Is that OK, Danny?"

Danny glanced at Dash, who glared at him in return. It would have been an exciting moment for Danny, the promise of a drive alone with Paulina. Only he was afraid he might have to pay for it with a rearranged face. The ref Stephen had roughed up had had to spend a week in the hospital.

"If it's alright with everybody else," Danny muttered.

No one complained. Danny assumed it was alright with everybody.


	3. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

* * *

Paulina changed into white shorts and a blue blouse. Her tan legs were a sight for sore eyes, and they made other parts of Danny ache as well. Danny owned an old Ford Mustang, with cracked upholstery and bald tires. Opening the door for Paulina to climb in, he felt both the thrill of possible romance and the despair of humiliation. Dash's car might not have been so hot, but next to Danny's jalopy, Dash's Fiat was a wonder on wheels. Paulina didn't seem to mind. She just asked what year it was.

"A seventy-six," Danny said, getting in himself. "It's got a V-eight engine."

"What can it do on the road?" Paulina asked, fastening her seat belt.

"The speed limit."

Paulina smiled. "You're not a braggart, are you?"

"I don't know. I know I'm not a mechanic." There was no choice but honesty. As soon as they hit the road, she would know it was a hunk of junk. He added, "The engine's lost half the compression in four of the cylinders. My friend Tucker is going to help me fix it someday. He's great with cars."

"I know Tucker," Paulina said. "He was Roger Foley's brother."

"Yeah."

They left the school parking lot. Danny kept glancing in his rearview mirror, expecting to see Dash and Star on his tail. But they were no where in sight. He drove with the windows downhis air-conditioning didn't work. Paulina's long dark hair brushed his bare arm as it blew in the breeze.

"Do you know where I live?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I don't want to go home."

"Where do you want to go?" Danny asked.

"Let's get something to eat."

Danny felt instant panic. He got paid that night, but now he only had ten dollars in his wallet. He could survive a stop at a fast-food joint, but that was all. "Where would you like to go?" he asked her.

"Nasty Burger."

"I like the Nasty Burger," he said, relaxing.

Paulina's tastes were similar to his own. She ordered a double cheeseburger, a large fries, and a strawberry shake. He had the same, except he made his shake a chocolate. She offered to pay, but he wouldn't hear of it. They took a booth in the corner. He was feeling good and she was looking great. She poured a ton of salt on her fries.

"Bad for your heart," he warned.

"I want to die young," she said. "That way I can stay pretty."

"I hear they have excellent preserving techniques these days."

She leaned closer, putting a salt-crusted fry in his mouth. "What I mean is, I like living in the fast lane."

"I usually get honked at when I go into it."

She laughed. "You're hilarious."

Danny tried not to let his pleasure at her compliment show. "Why do you want to live so fast?" he asked.

"Why not? I get bored easy, I guess." She glanced around at the people in the Nasty Burgera couple of teenagers and some families, mostly mothers with their squirming kids. "I've been bored since I moved to this city."

"When was that?"

"When I was seven." She made a face. "Don't you remember? We were in second grade together. My first year in Amity."

The fact was a revelation for Danny. He had no memory of the second grade. He didn't have a good memory, period. The earliest he could go backexcept for occasional scrapswas fifth grade. Sixth grade was fairly clear. Paulina had been in his sixth-grade class, and even then he'd been entranced by her long shiny ponytails and bright blue eyes.

"I can't remember," he said honestly. "I'm terrible that way. That's why I take so many pictures. So I can talk about what happened."

"Are you serious?"

"I don't know. Are you serious about getting about of this town?"

She nodded. "The day after graduation I'll be on the road heading for L.A."

"Do you have any money saved?"

"None."

"I think that would slow you down some."

"Nothing's going to slow me down." She gestured to his camera that he'd brought inside the Nasty Burger. "Do you think that you got some good shots today?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"When will you develop them?"

"I'll put them in the shop tonight," Danny said.

"I thought you had a darkroom at home. Did you develop my portfolio pictures at your house?"

"I can do black and white at homenot color. These are all in color." He smiled. "I think that Sugar Sisters shot is going to come out great."

Paulina wasn't enthusiastic. "Star can be so pushy at times."

"Why is she having another bake sale?"

"For the money. For herself. She wants to beat me to L.A." Paulina paused. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be putting her down. Nobody likes Star, but she's always been a good friend to me. She's been like a sister. And you know how sisters arethey fight about the silliest things. But sometimes we have a serious fight. Did you know we got into a big war when she refused to pay for the pictures you took?"

Again Danny felt pleasure that his personal existence on the planet had an effect on Paulina's actions. "I didn't mind," he said.

"But she ripped you off."

"It was only a couple of rolls of film."

"She used your time, your talent."

"If I'd had more talent, it wouldn't have taken me so much time to shoot her." He shrugged. "It was good practice for me."

Paulina was watching him. "Practice for what?"

"Being a photographer." he didn't know why she was suddenly studying him. Surely she had no idea of his plan to plant the camera in the girls' showers. He wasn't even sure he was still going to go through with it. The more he talked to Paulina, the less he liked the idea of taking advantage of her. He lowered his head, adding, "I'm going to try to get a job with an L.A. paper after graduation."

"You're going to follow me there," she said.

"Not unless I get there before you."

She spoke abruptly. "You wonder what I'm doing with Dash."

She had caught him off guard with her changing subjects so quickly. He had never heard Paulina so blunt. "Not at all. He seems like a nice guy."

"He's an idiot."

"Then why are you going out with him?"

"Idiots can be fun." Her smile returned. "And Star likes him."

"Huh?"

Paulina wasn't given a chance to elaborate further because Sam appeared out of no where just then. Danny silently cursed her and her bad timing.

"How are you doing?" Sam asked, walking up to the table, a small Coke in her hand.

"Great," Danny said. He gestured with his hand to Paulina. "You know Paulina don't you?"

Sam hardly looked at her. "Yeah."

"How have you been Samantha?" Paulina said sweetly. Too sweet, and both Sam and Danny could tell she was faking it.

Sam shuffled uneasily. "Not bad. What are you guys doing here?"

_You mean, what am I doing here with a girl as pretty as Paulina? I'm wondering that myself._

"Eating health food," Paulina said, sipping her shake.

"We just did the shoot on the cheerleaders," Danny said.

Sam grinned nervously. "Oh yeah, the one I messed up."

"I think Danny caught us in our full glory today," Paulina said, licking the shake from her lush lips. Sam gave Danny a quick glance, but Danny wisely chose not to react. Paulina's reference had been coincidental, he thought, and never mind that the slang "full glory" referred to people who were stark naked. Still, the comment gave him further doubts about his plan, or rather, Sam's plan. He reminded himself that it had been her idea.

"I tried my best," Danny said.

"I've already finished eating," Sam said out of nowhere, obviously nervous.

"That's too bad," Paulina said. "You could have joined us."

"Yeah, that's horrible," Danny said. "I mean, it's a shame. Where're you going now?"

He wasn't being very subtle. He couldn't imagine anything worse than Sam joining them. She was his friend and he liked her, but he was quite sure she didn't like him back. But that didn't give her the right to ruin his chance with another girl. Sam appeared to take the hintat least that was how it seemed at first.

"I have to get home," she said. "I've got work to do."

"Goodbye," Paulina said smoothly.

"Catch you later," Danny said, half-rising from his seat.

Sam nodded and left. Danny thought they had done her a favor by chasing her off because she had been distinctly uncomfortable in Paulina's presence.

Yet Sam was back a minute later, saying she needed a ride. Her car wouldn't start.

"What's wrong with it?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," Sam said.

"What sound does it make when you turn the key?" Danny asked.

"It doesn't do anything," Sam said.

"Sounds like the battery then," Danny said. "Maybe all you need is a jump. I have my cables with me."

"No," Sam said. "I don't want to mess with it. I want Tucker to look at it. He can always get it running. Just give me a ride home." She added quickly, "If you would, please."

"Sure," Danny said.

"Can we finish eating first?" Paulina asked.

"I don't care," Sam said. She sat down beside Danny and stared off into the distance. "Take your time."

From that point on the conversation ground down. If anything, Sam's uneasiness in Paulina's presence worsened. Sam seemed to sweat just hearing her voice. Yet Danny suspected Sam was clinging to them on purpose, but he couldn't imagine why. Paulina didn't seem to notice, or if she did, she didn't care.

They finished their food and went outside. Sam wouldn't even let Danny have a look at her car, which deepened his suspicions. To make matters worse, Sam began to drop hints that she had to talk to him. She obviously wanted him to drop Paulina off first, and it did make sense in a way. Paulina lived far from him, and Sam was only around the block. Yet Danny's resentment of the intrusion grew stronger. Paulina appeared to be in no hurry to get home. If Sam hadn't appeared, they probably could have talked longer.

Paulina lived in "the heights." All of Amity Park was in the hills, but naturally some of the houses were higher up. To reach Paulina's home, Danny had to climb a narrow asphalt road a mile and half out of the town. He remembered that Star also lived in the heights, but he couldn't recall where.

Paulina was friendly as she got out of his car at the end of her driveway. "I really appreciate the ride and the food," she said. "I'll have to repay the favor soon."

"It was no problem," Danny said. "I'll show you the pictures as soon as I get them back. Maybe you can pick out the ones you want in the yearbook."

Paulina laughed. "No, I'll leave the selection to you. It was nice to see you again, Samantha."

"Yeah, it was fun," Sam said flatly, climbing into the front seat.

Paulina began to walk toward her front door, looking awfully sexy in her shorts. "Goodbye, Danny," she said over her shoulder, her accent rolling off her tongue. "Take care."

"You, too," he said.

When they were heading back down the hill, Sam spoke up. "What was that all about?" she asked.

"What?"

"Why were you driving _Paulina Sanchez _home? Why were you feeding _Paulina Sanchez_?"

"She needed a ride and she was hungry."

Sam pulled out a cigarette. "I just find that weird. She doesn't even like you."

Danny swallowed. "You don't know her."

Sam had lost her timidity. "Oh, get off it. She's a rah-rah. She doesn't have friends. She collects objects to use and compensate for her lack of intelligence and personality."

Danny shrugged. "I don't think she's so bad."

Sam stared incredulously. "Do you like this girl or something?"

"I hardly know her."

"I can't believe you, Danny."

"Well, what's wrong with her?"

Sam sat back. "Nothing. She's perfect. She's a goddamn piece of art." Sam flicked ash out of the window. "Have you thought any more about how you're going to do it?"

"Do what?"

"Take the pictures."

"I don't know it I'm going to."

"Why not?" Sam sneered. "Do it tomorrow and you'll get one of your girlfriend."

Danny tried to concentrate on the road. "What's so special about tomorrow? Why can't I do it any other day?"

Sam was impatient. "I told you, Fridays the cheerleaders go through their entire routine. It's a full workout. It's one of the few days you can be sure they're going to take showers afterward." Sam paused. "Set your equipment tonight and you can have the pictures tomorrow."

"The equipment isn't that easy. I don't have a time-lapse attachment."

"I know that," Sam said. "But I thought you said you could build something that'll work just as well."

"Why are you so anxious to have these pictures taken?"

"Why are you so afraid? When I talked to you about it a few days ago, you were bouncing off the walls."

"That's not true," Danny said.

"You were excited."

"I have to think about it some more. Don't bother me about it right now. Do you want me to go check on your car now that Paulina's gone?"

Sam continued to regard him critically. "You don't think there's anything wrong with it, do you?"

"What are you talking about? You said it wouldn't start. If it won't start, it won't start."

Sam threw her cigarette out the window. "You can drive over and try to start it if you want, I don't care."

Danny didn't bother trying. He just took Sam straight home. He didn't understand why she was in such a bad mood, and she didn't say one funny thing the whole way.

Danny didn't get home until five-thirty, and he had to be at work in half an hour. His mother was already home. He bumped into her in the kitchen, where she was making him dinnerbroiled chicken and wild rice. She was great that way, and at the same time terrible. She would make him dinner when she knew he had no time to eat or when he wasn't hungry, just because it was what a good mother did. He would always find the time and room to eat at least some of it, because he was a good son.

She kissed him hello, which always embarrassed him. He had stopped feeling comfortable with her gestures of affection in seventh grade, when he'd started thinking about sex all the time.

"You're late," she said after planting her kiss.

"I had to photograph the cheerleaders," he answered, setting his camera down on the kitchen table and taking the rolls of film out of his pocket.

"Hard work. Did any of them flash you?"

"Yeah, two of them did. The click of the shutter really gets them excited."

"Are you hungry? Do you have time to eat?"

He wondered how he could shove anything more down as she took the chicken from the oven and reached for the pot of rice. "Sure," he said. "But let me jump in the shower for a few minutes first." Maybe some of his shake and hamburger would settle by then.

Danny was scrubbing himself with a bar of soap, wondering what kind of paper his mother would like, when the gun went off.

"God!" he shouted, jumping straight up and almost slipping and falling. It took him a few seconds to realize they weren't under attack, that it was just Tucker Foley taking target practice in their backyard. Danny hated sudden shocks. He stepped out of the shower and poked his head out the window. Tucker had his rifle up and was aiming at one of three cans he had set up on a boulder at the far edge of their property.

"You wouldn't want to knock first, would you?" Danny called. Tucker looked around, trying to find Danny. When he finally spotted him, he answered, "I told your mom I was going to shoot."

"That did me a lot of good." He and Tucker worked in the same place, same hours. They often rode to the factory together. But Danny hadn't planned on taking Tucker with him tonight. He hadn't planned on telling Tucker about the pictures he hoped to take, at least not until he had them in hand. Tucker's ethics varied from week to week, but on the whole they were more conservative than about what was right or wrong since his brother died. On the other hand, there was nothing Tucker liked better than a good-looking girl.

Danny was smart enough to recognize that Tucker had the better share of gray matter. Tucker wasted his sharp mind, however, and his grades were as dismal as Danny's. They had gotten worse since Roger's death. There was even some question about whether Tucker would graduate in June. He acted his usual crazy self on the outside, but under his jokes and witty remarks, it was clear to Danny he was putting on an act. Tucker was lost without Roger. He drank too much beer. He spent too much time shooting his gun at the Coke cans he pretended were Star's face.

There wasn't a single shred of evidence to link Roger's fatal accident with Star. She hadn't been an objective source if there was one, Star hadn't even been in the area. When Roger had nose-dived off the cliff on the way to Amity Park's heights, he was completely alone, except for the two grams of cocaine bubbling through his bloodstream. And that's what got to Tucker. He swore his brother never used drugs, that Star was the coke freak, that she must have forced Roger to take it. Danny tried to reason with him. No one, he said, much less a thin blond girl, could squeeze that much coke into a well-built nineteen-year-old guy. Roger had gone off the cliff because he was loaded, pure and simple. It was a terrible accident.

Yet Tucker still didn't believe it, and one of these days, he said, he was going to get Star. Danny didn't take the threat too seriously. He had gone hunting with Tucker a couple of times. Tucker was a hell of a shot. He could hit a can of soda at five hundred feet. But he wasn't a hunter. He'd line up a jackrabbit un his sights and hit the blade of grass in the rabbit's mouth instead. Tucker couldn't even talk tough, not really. He said he'd get Star and then he'd flush red with shame.

Tucker had missed the Coke can on his first shot, the one that had sent Danny's heart pounding. (A/N: For anyone that might get confused, Coke with a capital C is the soda, Coca-Cola. Coke with a lowercase C, coke, is cocaine.) As Danny watched him take aim again, he wondered if Tucker's using Coke cans for targets had anything to do with the drug that had been found in his brother's body. Tucker pulled the trigger and the can on the far right exploded.

"Did I make you pee your pants?" Tucker asked.

"I don't wear pants in the shower," Danny said.

Tucker checked his watch. "You should get dressed. We're going to be late."

"Why don't you just go ahead without me," Danny said. "My mom's made me dinner and I have film I want to drop off before I go in."

Tucker shrugged and took aim at another can. "If you're going to be late I might as well be late. Besides, I'm hungry. Maybe your mom will feed me, too."

Danny preferred to postpone decisions, and he felt he was being forced to make up his mind now. He couldn't take both Tucker and the equipment he needed to shoot the girls in the showers home from work. In a way, Tucker's forcing him to decide should have put his mind at ease. The decision was being made for him. But despite all his guilt about taking advantage of Paulina, he really wanted the pictures. He had drooled over dozens of _Playboy _magazines in his days, and Sam was the only girl he personally knew that he had seen naked. (Only on occasions like if he came over and she needed an opinion on what to wear. He enjoyed helping her do that because he had a say in what she wore for that day.) If he did happen to catch Paulina on film, he told himself he could always destroy those frames. He wouldn't even have to look at them. Certainly, he wouldn't let Sam get her hands on them.

"I'm going to be real late to work, maybe forty minutes," Danny said. "I really think you should go on without me."

Tucker blew away the middle can. The brown foam poured over the rock like bad booze. "I walked over here," Tucker said, lowering his rifle. "If I walk back to get my car, I'll be a lot later than forty minutes."

"You walked over here carrying your rifle?"

"No, I left it here a few days ago. Don't you remember?"

"No," Danny said. "But it doesn't matterI'll give you a ride to your house." Then Danny would have to come back home again and get his camera and stuff. Tucker knew Danny would neverunder normal circumstancesbring his camera to work.

Tucker smiled and took a step toward him. "You really don't want me to come with you, do you? Where are you going after work?"

"Nowhere."

"I heard you were at the Nasty Burger with Paulina," Tucker said.

"Who told you that? Sam?"

"No. But news spreads fast in this town. How did you manage to get Paulina to eat with you?"

"I didn't _get _her to eat with me. She wanted to eat something so we stopped. It's no big deal."

Tucker set his gun down against the wall of the house. Because of her close friendship with Star, Paulina wasn't a favorite of Tucker's. Yet he seemed to warm to the girl as they spoke.

"Did you have fun?" Tucker asked.

"The food was good."

Tucker sneered. "Did she have fun?"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask her?"

"Did Dash know you were with her?"

"Yeah. He was there when she asked if I would give her a ride home."

"Why didn't she go home with him?" Tucker asked.

"Because he was worried about his seats."

"Danny, this is your best friend you're talking to. Why don't you just tell me the story straight?"

"I am. There's nothing to tell. She needed a ride home and I gave her one. She was hungry and I bought her food. We didn't go out or anything."

"Did you ask her out when you were finished doing all these things for her?"

"No."

"Why not? You've been talking about her for years." More quietly and with a small smirk, he added, "And Sam."

"Because she has a boyfriend, and I don't like Sam!" Danny said. _Liar_, his mind told him. "Now shut up and let me finish my shower. If you're hungry, go inside. The chicken's already sitting on the table. Tell my mom I'll be there in a few minutes. Put your gun away. Put it in the garbage."

Danny finally finished his shower and dressed quickly. Once in the kitchen he only managed a couple of chicken wings and a handful of rice. Tucker wouldn't let up on him even at the table. He told Maddie that Danny had already eaten that afternoon with a beautiful girl. Maddie was interested in hearing the details, but Danny was evasive.

Danny did drive Tucker home, and by this time Tucker was convinced Danny was going somewhere after work. Danny was wondering if there was any chance he would be able to place his camera that night. Tucker was a good friend, but he could be a pain in the ass at the exact right time.

Danny dashed back in his house a few minutes later and told Maddie he had forgotten the film he was taking to be developed. He slipped his camera into a black carrying case and stuffed his camera cable in his pocket. The camera cable was used for taking pictures from a distance of a few feet. Well, he thought, if he did get everything set up and didn't change his mind, he would be more than a few miles from his equipment when he took his most exciting pictures.


	4. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

* * *

**_In the End_**

"Can I stop you for a minute?" Sergeant Fitzsimmons asked.

"Sure," Danny said.

"Why were you doing all this?"

"All what?"

"Why were you going to all this trouble to take the pictures? I mean, I can understand why any teenage boy would want photos of a bunch of naked cheerleaders. Hell, I'd probably look at them myself. But the way you talk about it, you seemed to swing from being all excited about the idea to feeling guilty about it."

"Is that unusual?"

"In a way. Let me ask you something. How much pressure did Sam put on you to take the pictures?"

"Some, not much."

"But she wanted you to take them Friday afternoon? Any other day wouldn't do?"

"Yeah."

"Did that make you suspicious?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"Not then. But later, yeah. It made me wonder."

"I'm probably getting ahead of myself. I should let you finish your story. But I'm curious to know how you were able to take the pictures. You said you didn't have time-lapse equipment?"

"No. That stuff's expensive," Danny said. "But I was able to put together equipment that worked just as well." He paused. "Do you need to hear all the details?"

"Yeah."

"Is this off the record?"

Fitzsimmons thought a moment. "I can't promise you that."

"Then maybe I'm getting myself in too deep. Maybe I should talk to a lawyer first."

"Danny, were you directly or indirectly responsible for any of the deaths that occurred yesterday?"

"I might have been indirectly responsible."

"I don't think so," Fitzsimmons said.

"How do you know? I haven't even begun to tell you what happened."

"Let's just say I know. Danny, you can trust me with this information."

"But what's the law against Peeping Toms?"

"I'd have to look it up."

"Well, say I did take these pictures. Does that mean I've broken the law?"

"Do you care if you have, after all that's happened?"

The tightness in Danny's throat returned. He remembered stepping in the puddle of blood the night before and knowing the puddle was too vast to ever drip back into the body crumpled beside it. He remembered the smell of the blood, mixed with the dirt on the cliff top, and how different it smelled from the burnt flesh of a few hours earlier.

"I guess not," Danny said. He had to take a breath. "I rigged my camera up to a VCR."

"Come again?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"I needed a way to have my camera snap several pictures during a certain time frame. I thought of all these complex electrical ways of triggering the camera, but that was the trouble with them--they were all too complex. I told you at work we put together VCRs. Well, just about any VCR can be programmed to record a half dozen TV shows. What I did was solder the care wires of my camera cable to--"

"What's a camera cable?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"It's a cable that allows you to stand several feet away from the camera and take a picture."

"Like if you want to be in the picture yourself?"

"It can be used to do that. But usually if you want to be in the picture you just have a twenty-second delay on the snap."

"Does your camera have such a delay feature built into it?"

"Yeah."

"Couldn't you have just lengthened the delay so that it went off hours later instead of seconds?"

"I don't think so. Even if I could have, it would have been no good for what I needed. I needed to shoot several pictures over a period of time because I couldn't tell exactly when the cheerleaders would get in the shower. The VCRs we assemble at work can be programmed to record eight different shows. I soldered the wires of my cameras cable onto the heads of a VCR. Every time it came to one of the program times, the VCR moved its heads and pressed the cable wires together, and a picture was taken."

"So you set it to take eight pictures?"

"That's the maximum the VCR would allow. I set it to take a picture every four minutes, starting at four o'clock even. The last picture was snapped at four twenty-eight."

"You mean four thirty-two?"

"No. Four twenty-eight. You can figure it out on a piece of paper."

"I see. Who told you the cheerleaders would be in the showers at four o'clock?"

Danny hesitated. "Sam did."

Fitzsimmons sounded as if he were taking notes. "When did you set all this equipment up in the showers?"

"Late Thursday night. Early Friday morning."

"Can you be more exact?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"Three o'clock Friday morning."

"Did anyone help you?"

"No," Danny said.

"Did anyone see you place the equipment?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"How did you hide all this equipment so that no one could see it? And how did you get into the girls' showers?"

"Let me tell you, it wasn't easy," Danny said.


	5. Chapter Four

This chapter is getting me back on track. Weekly updates from now on! (At least one chapter a week, maybe two.)

I'm also going to start writing up a new chapter for Untitled and about 6 new chapters for New Student Phantom. I'm feeling determined to get these stories done so I can start another one. Thanks for sending millions of messages saying "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO UPDATE?!" It really helps :)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

* * *

Work was dull. Danny found it difficult to concentrate. Not that he needed much of his mind to do his job. His major function as a minimum wage employee was to solder chips on electronic boards. Since he had soldered the same chips on the same boards for over a year, he could do it in his sleep. He dreamed about the chips and the boards and the smell of the solder. He had read somewhere that solder fumes were highly carcinogenic. He could honestly say he had no plans to make the job his life's work.

But there were pluses to the job. Because he worked the swing shift, he never saw the main boss, who left at five o'clock on Thursdays and Fridays. The guy who oversaw Danny's shift was only three years older than Danny. He was a totally laid-back dude, who drank a six-pack every night. Danny hadn't minded that until the guy started bringing in beer for Tucker. Tucker couldn't solder after he'd had a few cans, so Danny had to do Tucker's job on top of his own so Tucker wouldn't get fired.

Another advantage to the swing shift was the music. They got to listen to the radio--loud. Danny normally like to have rock on. But that Thursday night the music was just giving him a headache. He was trying to plan the details of his Peeping Tom escapade, and solder fumes were burning the cartilage in his nose, and the Rolling Stones were screaming. It had always been hard for him to do two things at once.

He wasn't worrying, however, about wiring his camera cable to the heads of the VCR--he knew he could do that in a few minutes. He was most concerned about sneaking the VCR out of the warehouse, especially with Tucker watching him. Then there was the problem of getting inside the girls' shower room. The school had had a ghost security system installed a few years back, meaning if any ghostly activity went on inside, he'd be in some big trouble, so ghost powers were out of the question (and Danny conveniently left anything about his ghost powers out of the story, Fitzsimmons didn't need to know his secret). Danny had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

Finally there was his continuing indecision. He would have to make up his mind he was going to do it-he _had _made up his mind-but then he'd remember how kind Paulina had been to him and how she'd feel if she knew what he was doing. Yet, paradoxically, the thought of Paulina would just drive him to do it more. Of course, it was no paradox at all. Paulina had been kind to him, but he knew he was never going to get closer to her than he already had. The next best thing would be the pictures, he thought.

"Spacing out?" Tucker asked from across the cluttered workbench.

"Look who's talking," Danny said. It was close to eleven o'clock. "How many beers have you had?"

"I can't remember." Tucker took a sip from the can sitting beside his electronic board and grinned. "I suppose that means I've had one too many." He set the can back down. "I'm really disappointed in you, Danny."

"I'm not going to ask why," Danny replied, reaching for a fresh board. When he was not soldering on the chips, he tested the boards to see if the other employees in the warehouse had soldered them on correctly. Six other guys, all close to his age, worked the swing shift. The testing machine required only that a board be slipped inside. If the light shone green, it was OK. If not, the light blinked red. A chimpanzee could have been in charge of quality control.

"At least you could tell me _something _about your date with Paulina," Tucker went on. He insisted upon calling it a "date" and there was no point in correcting him. "What did she eat?"

"A hamburger, French fries, and a strawberry shake."

"Did you pay for it?"

"Yeah," Danny said.

"Well, then she owes you something."

"Like what?"

"Sex," Tucker said.

"Get off it."

Tucker sat back from his work, thinking. "Danny, can I ask you a personal question?"

"No, I didn't have sex with Paulina at the Nasty Burger."

"Do you think we're ever going to have girlfriends?"

Danny glanced around to make sure no one else was listening. The high volume of the music took care of that possibility. Danny could see Tucker was serious. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "You've already had a girlfriend. What about Marjorie Bennett?"

Tucker waved his hand. "She was just someone I ate fast food with. Besides, she was a tramp. I mean real girlfriends, someone we could marry someday. Do you think we'll ever have those?"

Danny did think about it a minute. "We'll probably get married someday--just about everyone does. But it'll probably be to someone other than the person we really want to marry."

Tucker nodded. "I think you're right. It's depressing, huh?"

"Yeah."

Would you marry Paulina right now if you could?"

"I'm too young, and too broke."

"Say you were a few years older and had a good job. Knowing her as well as you do now, would you want to marry her?"

"That's the stupidest question I ever heard."

"I'm serious. Would you want her for keeps?"

Danny smiled faintly. "I wouldn't mind looking at her for a few years."

Tucker nodded again. "But we're just losers, aren't we? We'll never have a good job. We'll never look any better than we do now." Tucker sighed. "That was one thing my brother had going for him. He was so goddamn handsome the girls couldn't keep their eyes off him." He lowered his head, poking at the electronic board in front of him with his soldering gun. "That goddamn Star."

"Star wasn't there. She was at the movies in Parvo. Sam saw her there. Sam wouldn't lie about it."

Tucker shook his head. "I don't care if she was in the area or not. Roger was a different person before he met Star. He wasn't all stressed out. He always watched where he was going." Tucker set down his board and closed his eyes, his right hand tightening into a fist. He didn't pound the table, however. He just put up the fist to the side of his head, as if he wished he could pound something out of his mind. "I wish I knew where he'd been that day."

"Let it go, Tucker."

Tucker opened his eyes. "Do you think Paulina would know?"

"Huh? How would Paulina know?"

"She's Star's best friend." He was getting excited. "Could you ask her for me?"

"No. I can't ask her something like that. Anyway, didn't Sam say Paulina was with Star at the movies in Parvo? Yeah, I think she did. Why don't you ask Sam about it first."

Tucker showed impatience. "I know Paulina was with Star. That's what the whole goddamn school knows. But that's not what I'm asking. Paulina still may have known where Roger was that day. Star probably knew. She might have told Paulina. Why can't you ask her for me?"

"All right. I'll ask her if it means that much to you."

"Can you do it right away? Like tomorrow?" Tucker asked.

"What's the hurry?"

"Just do it, all right! Do I ever ask you for favors?"

"I'll do it," Danny said. It was true Tucker never asked for anything. But, boy, was everybody in a hurry. Do it tonight, Danny. Do it tomorrow. One would think there was an important deadline coming up.

At two o'clock, half an hour before quitting time, Danny grabbed a bunch of electronic boards and walked over to the testing machine, which was located in a separate room near the back door. By that time Tucker had finished a few more beers and lost interest in the universe as a whole. Danny was hardly in the testing room a minute when he slipped out to his car and got his camera and camera cable. The previous day he had placed an expensive--meaning, highly programmable--VCR in the testing room. At the present he had his own personal soldering gun in his pocket, plus a coil of solder. The camera-VCR fusion took more than the few minutes he had anticipated, but he had the equipment together before the rest of the guys began to punch out. In fact, he had no trouble sneaking out to his car and hiding the whole lot in his trunk. It was at this point that he began to feel committed. He was, after all, stealing a four-hundred-dollar piece of electronic equipment for the next twenty-four hours.

Tucker revived somewhat as they walked in the cool air toward their cars. He wanted to go for breakfast at the Denny's on Amity Park's main strip. They often did this after their late Thursday shift. Sometimes they'd sit in Denny's and drink coffee until the sun came up.

But Danny wasn't in the mood for breakfast. He had trees to climb. "I'm tired," he said, pulling his keys from his jeans pocket. "I don't have any money. I think I'll just go home and crash."

"I've got a few dollars," Tucker said, following him to his car. "Come on, Paulina's got to be asleep by now."

"Would you drop that crap." Danny opened his car door and turned to take a look at his friend. He felt guilty making Tucker drive himself home when he'd had so much to drink. Indeed, it was one of the reasons they had started driving to work together was so Tucker would get home in one piece. "You look like you're ready to fall over," he added. "You should rest. Get in your car, I'll follow you home."

But Tucker took a step back. "No, I want some bacon and eggs. I'll go by myself." He turned away.

"Tucker," Danny called.

"Say hello to Paulina for me," Tucker called back.

Danny watched Tucker leave the parking lot. He didn't follow him. He had been telling the truth when he said he was tired. He wanted to get to the school, set his equipment up, and go to bed as soon as possible. As he started his car he hoped he wouldn't end up in jail before he could get home.

There wasn't a car in the school parking lot. Danny noticed that the wide gate leading to the gymnasium and the showers was still open. Following Dash's example from that afternoon, he simply drove through the gate and up onto the grass. He parked less than fifty feet from the girls' showers. To be extra careful, Danny jogged back to the gate after he parked and closed the gate over, presenting the illusion that it was locked. Now he could work undisturbed.

Danny kept a flashlight in his glove compartment, along with a pair of pliers, a couple of screwdrivers, and various other things. It was a dark and moonless night, and the lights around the showers had burned out two years earlier. Unfortunately, the batteries in his flashlight had almost been squeezed of their last drops of juice. Danny shined the feeble light on the upper windows of the shower rooms. Danny decided to open a window and then come back for his equipment. He looked around to make sure he was completely alone, muttered his famous battle cry, "Goin' ghost!" and let the bright white rings wash over him, changing him into Danny Phantom.

Danny took his screwdrivers and the flashlight with him as he silently and gracefully flew upwards toward the windows. He sat on a near tree branch. The casement windows in the girls' shower room were similar to the ones in the boys', and those he _had _studied earlier. The windows only tilted in so far, at best forty-five degrees. He figured if he was to climb inside, he would have to remove the window.

He grinned when he found that one of the windows was all the way open and changed back into Fenton form before trying to squeeze inside. Of course he immediately got stuck. It was ridiculous. It was embarrassing. Worse, it hurt. As he tried squirming back out, the rusty edge of the window dug under the belly of his trademark T-shirt and scratched him.

"God," he muttered, as his feet began to slip on the tree branch somewhere beneath him. The age of the window hinges eventually came to his rescue, if it could be called a rescue. The right hinges snapped, and the left ones followed only a fraction of a second behind them. The window dropped beneath him, and fell away, exploding on the floor below. Danny quickly grasped the window frame so he wouldn't topple forward and join the glass shards on the floor below. He was _very _happy that he was going to get in and get out without leaving any clues. Ha!

_Now I'll have to find a broom to sweep up that mess. God, someone might notice the missing window right away, and get a ladder, and find my equipment._

He had to look on the bright side. At least now he had a clear opening into the showers. He flew back down to fetch the VCR and camera. Now Danny began to feel uneasy. His camera was more important to him than his right leg. If he dropped it, he'd die. He pulled out the strap extension and clipped it to his camera. Then he put it around his neck, tightening it securely. Danny grabbed the VCR and flew back up to the window, changing back the second his feet hit the ledge. Hugging the VCR to his side, Danny tentatively swung a leg over the edge of the window and ducked his head through the opening. The ledge was firm beneath his foot. He pulled his other leg through the window and stood up cautiously.

He was inside.

Danny pulled out his flashlight. It might have been better if he'd left it in his pocket turned off. Even the weak batteries were strong enough to show how far he'd fall if he took a false step--fifteen feet, if not more. He carefully shuffled toward the corner, his feet pointed straight out in front of him. He didn't have far to go--twelve feet at most. A few seconds later he was crouched in the wide space of the corner and was able to set his stuff down.

The corner ledge was exceptionally wide because it had once been used as a platform for an air compressor. Danny didn't know why the architect had placed the machine so high up, but he could see why safety officials had demanded that it be removed to the floor behind the showers. Danny was directly above where the girls washed. If the platform had given out at an inopportune time, the equipment could have crushed somebody. There were still two perpendicular metal plates in the corner that had helped to hold the compressor in place. It was behind one of these that Danny set the VCR.

Another advantage of the corner ledge was that there was an electrical outlet available near it. Danny had hoped that he could use the outlet to power the VCR. Regrettably, after plugging the VCR in and having nothing happen, Danny realized he was dealing with a dead outlet. It was a setback to his plan, but not a catastrophe. He had anticipated that the outlet might not work, so he had brought along a fifty-foot extension cord. It was outside in the trunk of his car. There was another socket relatively close that Sam had told him would work. It was located in the girls' equipment locker, which stood adjacent to the actual showers, on his side of the room. The equipment locker was a fifteen-foot square metal cage. It was called a locker but it was never locked. Sam had told him that he could feed an extension cord into the back of the cage and plug it in there. The danger was, of course, that someone would see the cord and follow it up to his equipment. But he had the time of the year going for him. It wasn't football season, or even basketball season, which girls were going in and out of the cage for all kinds of stuff. For just a day, though, the cord should remain undisturbed. That was Sam's opinion.

Danny went back outside and flew down to his car to get the extension cord. It was while he was climbing back in through the window that he got the idea that there was no reason why he should work in the dark. He would have to turn on the lights anyway to focus his camera on the spot he wanted to shoot. Rather than heading immediately back to the corner, he carefully shuffled in the other direction, until he came to the tiled wall that separated the showers from the lockers. It was at this point his flashlight failed completely. It didn't matter. Going by feel alone, he was able to step off the ledge onto the top of the wall, and then, finally, lower himself to the cement floor.

The layout of the girls' shower room was similar to the boys'. Danny knew where all the light switches were, and he flooded the place with a bright yellow glow. He felt better immediately. He had never cared for the dark.

Before plugging in his extension cord, Danny cleaned up the glass and twisted metal from the fallen window. There was a broom and dustbin in the cage. He put the garbage in a can that stood in full view of everyone, but covered the mess with a pile of newspapers. Then he checked out the socket Sam had told him about. Its location was excellent. It was at the back of the cage, at the top. The ledge that ran beneath the window ended not six feet above it. The only tricky part that he could see was where the cord would have to come over the ledge and into the cage. For those few feet, the cord would be exposed. There was no helping it.

Ten minutes later Danny had the extension cord in place and the VCR running. He had already decided how to program the shots--eight shots every four minutes, starting at 4:00 P.M. He did not feel a test shot was necessary. The setup was so simple, nothing could go wrong.

_Unless they hear the clicking of the camera._

Danny was more worried about the sound of the camera than the VCR. The VCR would be in the back of the ledge, out of sight, but the camera had to be near the front edge. Plus a camera shutter made a very distinctive click. Heads usually turned when a camera was operating. Yet, he reasoned, the water should be running at that point. It should be OK.

Now Danny had to decide where to focus the camera. With his luck he would end up shooting the north end of the showers while the girls were splashing on the south end. He finally decided to aim the camera toward the center of the showers and adjust the lens so that he had the widest possible angle on the shot. It seemed a wise compromise. He would be sacrificing detail, but he could always blow up the shots later.

Danny climbed back down and surveyed his setup from ground level. The VCR was not visible from any point in the showers. Even the camera was not entirely out in the open. He had been able to use a portion of one of the plates that fastened the air compressor to hide half of it, and the other half he obscured with a small empty jar he found. In fact, unless someone was to stare directly at the corner, and study it, she wouldn't know there was a camera there at all. The extension cord wrapping down toward the edge was not so carefully hidden, yet it looked harmless. No one would stop to yank on it in the next twenty-four hours, he was convinced.

Danny felt a surge of power. Several things had gone wrong already. Several more could yet go wrong. Still, he had a feeling that he was going to have his pictures, and that they were going to be great.

Danny turned off the lights and left the shower room. He didn't go out the window, he used the front door.

He was about to climb in his car when he heard what he thought were footsteps. It was difficult to pinpoint where they were coming from, but it seemed to be somewhere near the center of campus. He strained his eyes to look through the dark but saw nothing. No janitors worked that late, and he was trying to rationalize what else could be making the noise. A loose window banging in the wind perhaps, even though there was no wind to speak of. That did nothing to reassure him or his nerves. _They _might be watching him now, knowing he was trying to watch them. He wondered if he should try to find out who it was, or if he should jump in his car and make a run for it. But he made a typical Danny Fenton decision, which was to decide to do nothing. He just stood there in the dark, listening. The sound never returned, and eventually he convinced himself he had just imagined it.

His calm only lasted until he was in his car and driving across the school parking lot to the exit. It was when he spotted Tucker slumped over the wheel of his car in the corner of the lot that an ice-cold needle of fear stabbed Danny in the chest. Tucker was dead, he thought.

The pain eased a few seconds later when Danny pulled up beside his friend. Tucker had merely passed out at the wheel, waiting for him. That's what he said, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" Danny demanded, wondering if Tucker had followed him to the girls' showers and watched him fly up with his VCR.

"I followed you here," Tucker said.

"Why? I thought you were getting something to eat."

"I lost my appetite." Tucker rubbed his tired eyes. "Where's Paulina?"

"I don't know. Home in bed, I suppose."

"You didn't meet her here?"

"No."

Tucker sat up and glanced across the lot, in the direction of the gymnasium and the showers. "Then why are _you _here?"

"I lost my lens cap this afternoon while I was photographing the cheerleaders. I wanted to look for it before some jerk swiped it." Danny was pleased at how easily the lie came to him. Ordinarily he lied about as well as a politician.

"Did you find it?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah." Danny paused. "I didn't see you follow me here."

Tucker smiled. "I was sneaky about it."

Danny continued to feel uneasy. "You weren't walking in the center of campus a few minutes ago, were you?"

"No. I passed out here." It was Tucker's turn to pause. "Why? Did you hear someone?"

"I thought I did."

"Maybe it was Paulina."

Danny had to laugh. "Maybe." He put his car in gear. "I've got to go home. I'm bushed."

"Think you'll make it into school tomorrow?" Tucker asked.

"I hope so. There's some stuff I want to pick up."

* * *

And here's your sneak peek of the next chapter:

_The fire looked so clean, so purifying, but the black stinking smoke it spun off as it transformed layer after layer of bloody flesh into filthy ash told Danny it was a fire from below. His fear up on the cliff returned sharply. The food in his stomach welled up in his throat. This girl's face was nothing more than that of a mummy's--a mummy that had fallen into a vat of corrosive acid. Yet somehow Danny was able to recognize her. It may have been because he had photographed her so carefully the day before._


	6. Chapter Five

You didnt think I died, did you? I hope not. Sorry this chapter is so short.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

* * *

Danny didn't make it to first period. In fact, it was close to noon before he woke. For a long time he just lay in bed, enjoying the rest, not aware that he was about to embark upon the most traumatic day of his life (so far, anyway).

When he did finally saunter into the kitchen, he saw that his mother had been up extra early and had gone to the store. The icebox was now jammed with food--there had been little to eat when he had gotten home that morning. Danny wasn't a big eater, though, and when he did try to gain a few pounds by stuffing himself, he just felt sick. Sitting at the kitchen table, he had a bowl of cornflakes and a glass of apple juice. He started on the paper. It was not unusual for Danny to read the paper from front to back. He also enjoyed magazines, but he'd never been much of a book person. Books got too complicated for him. He'd usually just flip to the last page to see what happened.

It was two o'clock before Danny finished the newspaper and his cornflakes. By then there was no point in going to class. He didn't fret about what he'd missed, even though he had a vague recollection that there was supposed to have been an important test in English. He went into the living room and plugged an old movie into the VCR. He had watched the movie before, but since he couldn't remember the ending, he didn't mind watching it again. It was about giant mutant ants that ate policemen and little girls. He thought the special effects were excellent.

Around 5 o'clock he began to think about driving by Paulina's house. He knew it was a crazy idea--like she would just happen to be outside when he drove by. There was no way he was going to stop and knock on her door. Still, he thought there might be a tiny chance she'd be outside watering the front lawn. Her house had a nice lawn. He hadn't noticed a sprinkler system, so someone must water it. He didn't have anything to do anyway. Work didn't start until six. To be on the safe side, he couldn't pick up his camera and the film until the middle of the night. He decided to give it a shot, and figured he could always drive through the Nasty Burger afterward if he didn't see her. Maybe she'd be there having a shake and fries.

Danny had gotten dressed, grabbed his keys and had been on his merry way to Paulina's house, when he saw the smoke. At first he thought it was from a truck. It was gray, like oil exhaust, and there wasn't much of it. But then the thin plume of smoke suddenly transformed into a black billow, as fat as a pregnant cloud. Danny put his foot down on the gas. The rainfall had been light the previous winter. The prickly shrubs that chewed the sides of Amity Park's hills were ready to ignite. If a fire got going, it would do a lot of damage before it was put out.

The smoke was not so close as it initially appeared. Danny had to drive another mile into the hills before he found the source. A car had gone off the side of a cliff at a sharp bend in the road. After parking his Mustang on the shoulder, Danny recognized the spot and figured the person or people had to be dead. He didn't have to walk to the edge of the cliff and look down--it was the same spot where Roger, Tucker's brother, had been killed. Danny knew the drop to the bottom of the cliff was over three hundred feet.

Yet Danny walked to the edge and looked down anyway. It was an ugly sight, but fascinating. The car, a red Fiat, was completely engulfed in flames. The vehicle had hit the rock below head-on, and the gas tank had probably exploded on impact. Both the front and rear ends had totally disintegrated. The fire was fierce. Danny could barely hear the roar of air as it sucked through the shattered windows and fed the orange blaze above the sound of his own blood crashing in his ears. He recognized the car. It belonged to Dash Baxter, Paulina's boyfriend.

_But was Dash driving?_

Danny couldn't tell from where he was standing. All he could see was that there had only been one person, the driver, in the car. He would have to climb down to the bottom to know more.

Danny glanced up and down the road, looking for help. There was no one in sight. It was another cooker of a day. The sweat poured off his forehead as the rising smoke from the burning car stung his eyes. He was hot all right, yet suddenly in the center of his spine he became icy cold. The gorge seemed to be a vast haunted graveyard, where the ghosts of the dead clamored for company. Roger Foley was very much on his mind then. Danny couldn't see who was behind the wheel, but he could tell the person was small.

_A girl maybe._

He had to know. Against his better judgment, he walked around for a few minutes and then walked back down the road about a quarter of a mile before flying down. Fortunately for the surroundings, the floor of the gorge where the car had crashed was pretty much solid rock. There was nothing handy to burn.

_Except flesh._

It was definitely a girl. A white girl turning black. The heat of the blaze forced Danny to halt forty feet from the car. The girl was not sitting comfortably. The force of the impact had rammed her head into the car ceiling. Her clothes and hair were gone, and her skin was going fast. Danny tried to look away but the sight held him locked in a sick hold. Thoughts of hell and eternal damnation spun in his brain. He tried to tell himself that she was dead, that she had died on impact, yet he had to wonder if that was true.

_Maybe she had felt everything._

The fire looked so clean, so purifying, but the black stinking smoke it spun off as it transformed layer after layer of bloody flesh into filthy ash told Danny it was a fire from below. His fear up on the cliff returned sharply. The food in his stomach welled up in his throat. This girl's face was nothing more than that of a mummy's--a mummy that had fallen into a vat of corrosive acid. Yet somehow Danny was able to recognize her. It may have been because he had photographed her so carefully the day before.

It was Star Barnscull.

Danny turned away and vomited.


	7. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

* * *

Time had gone by, but Danny wasn't sure exactly how much. There were people on the scene now. One of them was Paulina. Another was Sam. Danny didn't know where they had come from. He was sitting on a rock about a hundred yards from the fried car. He had stumbled over and collapsed on it after he had made his mess on the ground. The fire was out. A couple of cops and firemen had arrived and sprayed it with white dust. They were late—the flames had been dying out anyway. From where he was sitting in the gorge, Danny could see an ambulance parked at the edge of the cliff overhead. A plastic-gloved paramedic was slowly easing what was left of Star out of the wreckage.

_He should have brought a dustpan with him._

Danny watched as Sam broke away from the cops and walked toward him. He knew one of the cops wouldn't be far behind her.

"Did you see how it happened?" Sam asked. Her hand visibly trembled as she raised it to brush hair off her face.

"No," Danny said flatly.

"Then what are you doing here?" Sam asked.

"I was driving by, I saw the smoke." He shrugged. "What are you doing here?"

"The same."

"Did you come with Paulina?"

"Huh? No. Why would I do that?" she questioned shrilly.

"I don't know." He paused. "It is definitely Star, right?"

"Everyone seems to think so. The police got Dash on their radio. He says he loaned Star his Fiat."

Danny nodded in the direction of Paulina. She was conferring with the police. As far as Danny could tell she had not once turned her eyes in the direction of the exploding car. She looked as white as a pale moon. "How did she end up here?" Danny asked.

"She was probably just driving home," Sam said. "I don't think the police called her." Sam stared at the wreckage. "Star's not going to be voted prom queen this year."

"Sam," Danny protested.

"Well, I'm sorry, but she was a jerk."

Danny stood. "I'm happy she won't be bothering you anymore."

Sam was insulted. "You didn't like her either."

"She wasn't so bad. She might have turned out to be nice." Danny thrust his hands in his pockets and bowed his head. "I wish she'd had the chance."

The bigger of the two cops broke away from the group and walked towards Sam and Danny. He had a red face, like that of a man who enjoyed his whiskey, and a bulging gut that looked well muscled. His expression was dark—appropriate for the curcumstances—but he looked as if he were ordinarily a cheerful man. Someone who could visit the scene of a tragic acciddent in the afternoon, and still enjoy the company of his grandchildren in the evening. He nodded to Danny and offered his hand. Apparently he had already made Sam's acquaintance.

"I'm Sergeant Fitzsimmons," he said. "I understand you're Daniel Fenton?"

Danny shook the cop's hand and was surprised at how gentle the man's grip was. "Danny," he said.

"Okay, Danny. Would it be all right if I ask you a couple questions, Danny?"

"Sure."

"You were the first one to reach the scene of the accident, correct?"

"Yeah."

"What did you see?"

Danny fidgeted. "The same thing you see now. Except the fire was burning then."

"Was there anyone around when you first got here?"

"No."

"How did you know the car was down here?"

"I saw the smoke. I drove straight here."

"Did you hear the sound of the crash?"

"I was about a mile from here when I saw the smoke—on the other side of the hill. I didn't hear anything."

"How long would you say it was between when you arrived here and the car went off the cliff?"

"I don't know. Five minutes. It's hard to say."

Fitzsimmons turned to stare at the empty wreck. The paramedic had managed the get Star out of the car. He was laying her out inside a plastic green bag. The three of them watched as the paramedic pulled up the zipper and Star disappeared for good from the face of the earth. Danny felt his eyes moisten and lowered his head to study the ground near his feet. The police officer noticed.

"She was a friend of yours?" Fitzsimmons asked.

_In a way, yeah. That's my vomit over there._

"Sort of," Danny said. "We both knew her."

"She was a cheerleader at our school," Sam added.

Fitzsimmons sighed. "I understand she was a beautiful girl."

"Yeah," Danny said. "She was very pretty. I took some pictures of her yesterday."

Fitzsimmons gestured to Paulina. "That girl over there says she was her best friend. Is that true?"

"Yeah," Danny said.

"She wants to accompany us back to the station and await the results of the autopsy," Fitzsimmons said. "She wants you to come with her."

"Me?" Danny asked, surprised.

"Yes," Fitzsimmons said. "Do you want to come?"

"All right," Danny said.

"Why are you doing an autopsy?" Sam asked.

Fitzsimmons studied Sam. "We usually do one to find out the cause of the death."

"But she died in the car crash," Sam said.

"But why did her car crash?" Fitzsimmons said.

Sam raised her eyes to the top of the cliff. "It's a sharp turn in the road. Star always did drive like a maniac."

"But she drove this road every day of her life," Danny said, studying the cliff and remembering how well Roger had known the road as well.

* * *

The police station was not in Amity Park but in Parvo, a town four times the size of Amity, located about twenty miles southeast of it. Danny drove his Mustang to Parvo with Paulina sitting by his side, and Sam trailing them in her car. Sam had insisted on accompanying them, which Danny couldn't understand. Fitzsimmons hadn't seemed to mind, though. Fitzsimmons acted as if everyone was welcome. He was in his black and white, a hundred yards in front of them and not far behind was the ambulance that carried Star's remains.

"She always liked Fridays," Paulina said suddenly. They were the first words she had spoken since she had climbed in his car twenty minutes earlier.

"She seemed like someone who enjoyed the weekends," Danny said, feeling stupid. Paulina just shook her head.

"She didn't like the weekends. Just Friday. Just the promise of the weekends. The reality never lived up to the promise for Star. It was always a disappointment for her."

"Why?" Danny asked. "She had a lot of friends."

"I was her only friend." Paulina turned away and stared out the window. "Besides, she was right, they always _were _disappointing."

"I don't understand."

"It doesn't matter."

"This must be terrible for you," Danny said.

Paulina continued to stare out the window. "I don't know if I feel anything. Maybe I'm in shock. But I do have a feeling that something bad is about to happen, that it's going to hit soon—but I already know what it is. It's already happened. Star's dead. My friend is dead." Paulina shook her head. "But it's like I'm the dead one, and don't really know it, not yet."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Paulina turned her head toward him. Her huge blue eyes were arresting. He had to struggle to keep his attention on the road. Her dark hair flowed over her white blouse, touching her white pants. She was in all white, and the lines around her wide mouth seem to be traced in black by contrast. Her response caught him by surprise.

"You help me just by being here," she said.

"I don't know about that."

"You do. When I reached the scene of the accident, I couldn't look at what had happened. But just seeing you sitting alive on that rock made it all the more bearable." Paulina reached over and touched his knee. "I really mean that."

Danny smiled faintly, uncomfortably. "Thanks."

Paulina took her hand back and stared straight ahead. Her lower lip trembled. "I heard Sam asking the policeman, but I didn't hear the answer—why do they have to do an autopsy?"

"I think they want to make sure it was an accident."

Paulina frowned. "Don't they think it was an accident?"

"Yeah. I think it's just routine."

"What do they do in an autopsy? Do you know? Exactly?"

Danny had read a thing or two about them, but didn't feel like going into details. "I think they take tissue samples, do X-rays—stuff like that."

Paulina wasn't buying it. "They'll cut her open, won't they? They'll cut out her brain. That's what they do in movies when they do one."

"Try not to think about it."

Paulina's whole face trembled this time. "She was so pretty."

"Yeah."

Paulina smiled faintly, biting her lower lip. "We were both so vain. We'd always tell each other that we were the prettiest girls in school, and laugh at how ugly everyone else was. We'd do that right before we'd get into a fight about who _was _the prettiest—her or me. I always said I was, and you can imagine what Star said." Paulina glanced at him. "Dumb, huh?"

"It sounds like a normal friendly arguement."

She lost her smile. "It wasn't always so friendly. We weren't always nice to each other. I told you that the other day." Paulina hesitated. "Maybe I should have been nicer to her. Maybe it would have made a difference, you know, with what happened today."

"You can't blame yourself. That would be crazy."

"I am to blame—in a way. I should have given her a ride home. She shouldn't have had to borrow Dash's car. She always drove too fast in that thing."

Again Danny was struck by how Dash seemed to have been Star's boyfriend, rather than Paulina's. "If you'd been with her, you both might have died," he said.

"Do you think that's possible?"

He shrugged. "I'm no philosopher."

Paulina was interested. "You see, I don't think that's possible. I feel like I'm never going to die. Does that sound crazy? I mean, I know I have a body, that it's going to wear out, but I just can't see it happening." then she stopped herself. "But I suppose Star felt the same way." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "You're a nice boy, Danny, did anyone ever tell you that?"

"My mom."

"Your mom is right. What's she like?"

Danny shrugged. "She's nice. What's yours like?"

"I don't know. She never talks to me."

"Do you two fight?"

"No, we don't do anything. We simply coexist."

"That's too bad. How about your dad?"

"Don't even ask about him."

"I'm sorry."

"It doesn't bother me," Paulina said. "Star never got along with her parents, either. She hated them, in fact. I could see why. They were awful." Again Paulina stopped herself. "Do you think I'm being bitchy?"

"Of course not," Danny said.

"No, I mean seriously. Sometimes I do things that hurt people, and I ask myself why I did that. But the next day I'll do the same thing all over again."

"What have you ever done that's hurt someone?"

"You'd be amazed." Paulina thought for a moment. "What do you think this autopsy will show?"

Danny was confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean if I haven't always been a nice girl, Star was sometimes a bad girl."

"Do you think she was drinking and driving?"

Paulina snorted softly. "That would hardly be the beginning of it."

Paulina fell silent, and Danny didn't question her further. After a while Paulina began to sob softly, and still Danny didn't speak. It broke his heart to hear Paulina in pain, but he knew he couldn't do anything to take it away.

The station in Parvo was new—all red brick and white paint. Fitzsimmons led Danny and Paulina inside, and Sam jumped out of her car and scurried in after them. Yet Sam maintained her behavior of the previous day, trying to pretend Paulina wasn't there. Paulina also ignored Sam, only pausing at the threshold of the station to ask Sam what she was doing there.

"I just want to see what happened," Sam said.

They went inside. Fitzsimmons had them sit in his office. It was small and cluttered and smelled of air freshener. Fitzsimmons had failed to reach Star's parents. Paulina told him that they probably had left for a weekend visit to San Francisco. She wasn't sure which hotel they were staying at. Fitzsimmons pressed her to remember. They needed Star's parents' permission to perform the autopsy. He told them once again it was unnecessary for them to be there at all. Yet he said it without conviction, and Danny recieved the impression that he wanted to keep an eye on them until he had the facts clear in his own mind.

Paulina remembered the name of the hotel after a bit.


	8. Chapter Seven

Notice that I added a "In The End" to all chapters that are in the present time. you'll understand if you investigate.

Oh, and if no one minds, when this story is finished, I'm going to delete all of the author's notes save for the disclaimer and warning.

The next chapter will be longer, I promise.

****

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.

Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.

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**_In the End_**

"Did you think I was suspicious?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"I didn't know what you were doing," Danny said.

"Paulina wanted to see what the autopsy showed. Did she tell you that?"

"I think Paulina already knew what it was going to show," Danny replied.

"That's what you implied. How could she know?"

"She was Star's best friend," Danny said. "I'm sure she knew Star took cocaine."

"Star took a lot of cocaine. She had taken a lot over a long period of time. We didn't tell you that at the station."

"You didn't tell me anything. Paulina told me about her drug habit."

"We couldn't," Fitzsimons said. "You understand. It was private information. The only reason Paulina found out was because she said it straight to my face in my office right after I received the results from the coroner. It was so late at night then that I saw no point in denying it."

"Yeah."

"Danny, can I ask you something? Who do you think it was at school the night you planted the camera?"

"It could have been any of them—Sam, Tucker, Paulina. Maybe it was Dash, I don't know."

"You don't think it was Star?"

"No," Danny said.

"Why not?"

"Because she died at the beginning."

"What do you mean by that remark?" Fitzsimmons asked.

Danny paused. "Nothing. I just said it."

"Tell me when Sam and Paulina arrived at the scene of the crash."

"I don't know," Danny said. "I was spacing out. Didn't they come after you got there?"

"They were standing at the edge of the road when we drove up. They were together, but it appeared they had come in separate cars. You honestly don't know when they got there?"

"I have no idea."

"Was that your vomit?"

"It wasn't Star's," Danny said.

"Sorry. You already told me you didn't hear the sound of the car as it crashed. My next question's going to sound silly, but I have to ask it. Did you hear any squeal of tires?"

"No, I was too far away."

"Star didn't put on the brakes before she went off the ledge."

"There weren't any skid marks?" Danny asked.

"Only old ones."

"It doesn't surprise me."

"Because Star was loaded?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"I have to finish my story. I'll explain that. But maybe you can tell me how loaded she was? And how could the coroner tell anyway? I thought she was burned pretty bad."

"Drug toxicity is determined by a blood test," Fitzsimmons said. "Star was badly burned but it was still possible to get a blood sample from her. From our tests, I can tell you she was loaded at the time her car crashed. But how loaded—from her perspective—I can't say. Someone who takes cocaine regularly can snort a tremendous amount and appear relatively clearheaded."

"What test made you think she was a long-time user?"

"The cartilage inside her nose survived. The coroner said that Star must have been snorting cocaine on a regular basis for at least one year. The cartilage was badly damaged."

"Her nose always looked OK from the outside," Danny said.

"Cocaine is for the most part a functional drug. She could have been high as a kite and still gone to school." Fitzsimmons stopped for a moment. He may have been writing something down, Danny decided. "Do you know if Paulina shared her friend's habit?"

"No."

"What about Sam? Dash?"

"Sam wasn't into coke. I don't know about Dash."

"And Tucker?" Fitzsimmons asked.

"The hardest thing Tucker ever took was beer."

"Did you take Paulina home after you left the station?"

"No. Sam took her."

"I thought they didn't like each other?"

"They just went home together. I don't know whose idea it was. It might have been Sam's."

"But didn't you want to take Paulina home? You told me how much you liked her."

"I didn't care. It was late."

"Where did you go after you left the station?"

"You know."

"You went for the film?"

"Yeah."

"Why? You must have had other things on your mind besides naked girls."

"I did." Danny hesitated. "I just had this feeling."

"What kind of feeling?"

"A feeling of dread."


	9. Chapter Eight

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

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But Danny's feeling of dread was buried deep as he stood on the dark campus beside the tall tree, under the open window. What dominated his conscious mind were confusion and excitement; the former because Star had been alive and pretty only a few hours earlier, and the latter because there was still the roll of film. The film that may hold either Star or Paulina, or both, naked together during their last minutes of friendship on planet Earth.

He was up and inside the window in minutes. He had his flashlight with him, and he saw in a flash that the VCR and the camera had not been disturbed. He worked his way immediately over to the corner ledge and then down onto the floor, where he reached for a light switch. He didn't want to work in the dark because he was suddenly afraid of it. He couldn't get Star's burnt remains out of his head. Yet his excitement anticipating his pictures remained. He thought he was some kind of a pervert.

_"I mean ... Star was sometimes a bad girl."_

Had she really taken all those drugs? It was amazing he had never noticed. But then, he hadn't noticed the same thing about Roger. He wondered who had turned on whom. He wondered if Tucker had heard about the accident.

_Accident._

It was strange how funny the word sounded in his thoughts.

Like some kind of bad joke.

His feeling of dread took a brief peek at the surface.

Danny unplugged the extension cord and scaled the wall back up to the ledge with the cord. The height no longer bothered him—it was a lot less than the distance to the bottom of the gorge, he thought, and if he fell he wouldn't explode on impact. He wondered what it had felt like to fly through the air like that, in a red sports car, watching the ground rush toward you. She had probably screamed all the way to the bottom.

He checked the camera. It had taken eight pictures.

"It worked," he whispered.

He gathered his equipment up and climbed down to the floor again. It was only after he had flipped off the light and was going out the door that the thought of fingerprints crosssed his mind. He stopped in the doorway and looked behind him into the dark. He was being paranoid. A few hundred girls went through those doors every day, touching everything in sight. Besides, he couldn't possibly remember everything he'd touched to wipe clean.

There was another reason he didn't go back in and try to remove his prints from the window and the ledge at least. It was dark in the showers. He knew all he had to do was turn on the light and the darkness would fly, but just peering into it made him want to go home and curl up under his blankets.

But who was he fooling? He wasn't going home to sleep. He was going to develop the film. As he raced toward his house, he mentally reviewed whether he had all the necessary chemicals. He figured in less than an hour, if all went according to plan, he should have fresh prints.

Danny's plans briefly crumbled when he reached his house and saw Tucker's car parked in his driveway. Tucker _must _have heard about Star and ditched work to come over and talk. What would Tucker's mood be? Sympathetic? Pleased? A little bit of both?

Danny parked and left the equipment in the trunk of his car. He opened the front door gently. He could move quietly when it suited him because he came home late every night and never disturbed his mother. His stealth kept him from disturbing Tucker, who had crashed on a living room chair, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open and sawing sequoias. Tucker snored like a badly timed internal combustion engine. Danny knew that once asleep, Tucker was like a dead man. Danny went back to his car for his equipment. The night was still young, he thought, and full of promise.

Danny had a makeshift darkroom in his bedroom. Next to his camera, it was his pride and joy. Constructing it the previous spring had taken big bites out of his bimonthly checks. The most difficult part had been tapping into the bathroom plumbing and putting a sink and faucet in the corner of his room. The darkroom was not technically separate from his bedroom, but the black vinyl sheets he had draped from the ceiling effectively cut out all extraneous light. Danny removed the film from his camera and closed himself inside the corner. Quickly he reviewed what he had on hand. He was low on fixer, but figured he had just enough. He reached for the light switch.

The first step was to remove the film from the roll and place it in a spool, which prevented the film surfaces from touching. This had to be done in total darkness. Next he slipped the spool into a developing tank, clamping down a light-tight lid. Once he had the lid in place he was able to turn the light back on.

He used three chemicals to develop photographs: film developer, stop bath, and fixer. Film developer did what the name implied; it reacted with the film and imprinted the images the camera lens had recorded. Stop bath halted the developing process. It was an acidic solution and smelled like vinegar. In fact, Danny's whole room smelled like vinegar. He was so used to it, he hardly noticed it anymore.

Fixer helped remove the other chemicals from the film. It made the images permanent. All the chemicals had to be kept in the temperature range of sixty-eight to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. They didn't work otherwise. He had forgotten how warm it had been lately. He took out his thermometer and discovered the chemicals were all over eighty degrees. It was only a minor mistake, and one he could rectify quickly. He took the chemicals into the kitchen and stuck them in the icebox for a few minutes. That should do it, he thought. He hoped he hadn't waked Tucker in the process.

Tucker had shifted positions in the living room. In fact, now he was lying on the couch. That really blew Danny's mind, that Tucker had sleepwalked in someone else's house.

Danny was back in his darkroom ten minutes later with cool chemicals. He got out his timer and set it to eight minutes. Quickly he poured the developer solution into the tank, filling it to the top. He capped it and inverted it several time. This was called agitating the solution, which was a fancy expression for making sure the stuff soaked over the film. Several times he tapped the tank on his counter to dislodge any bubbles. He did this for exactly eight minutes, but slowed as he went along, until at the end he was hardly shaking the tank at all. When the time reached zero, he uncapped the tank and poured the solution down the drain.

Next he added stop bath to the tank, again recapping it. Here the timing was not so critical. He shook it for about a minute before pouring the solution away.

Danny remebered he had bought a bottle of Rapid Fix a couple of months earlier. Rapid Fix was often used by newspaper photographers when they were in a hurry to make a deadline. It cut the fix phase from ten minutes down to two. Incredibly, Danny remebered exactly where he had put the bottle—under his work counter. He poured a quarter of the bottle into the tank and let it soak the film for the brief time. The he threw the solution away.

Now Danny had to rinse the film in water. Many photographers used distilled water for this step, but Danny was not a purist and couldn't afford to be fussy. He held the tank containing the film—with the cap off—under his faucet with the water running. A good wash lasted twenty minutes. The water further removed the chemicals from the film so they wouldn't stain it and shorten the life of the film. but Danny was in a hurry so he let the film wash for only ten minutes. It wouldn't matter that much anyway.

He was now ready to remove the film from the tank. Ordinarily at this stage he would let the film sit for an hour and dry. But he had another method to hurry the process—his mother's hair dryer. When he was through with it—two minutes later—he got ready to cut the dried film into strips. Here he deviated somewhat from his normal method. With a roll of thirty-six exposures, he would cut it in six strips of six. But that night he just cut off the first eight shots as a whole, and set the other twenty-eight unused exposures aside. He laid the eight out on his light table, a narrow work space topped with translucent glass that covered a row of four tiny lights. Then he reached for his loupe—a small magnifyer.

Few laypeople understood that a negative contained far more detail than a print could ever show. For most people a negative was just a blur of lines and shadows. But as Danny bent over the negatives, with his loupe in hand, he was in position to see exactly what there was to see.

_Oh, God._

Danny almost fainted.

There was nobody in the first four negatives, and only one girl in the next three. It was Star, standing in the showers in the last twelve minutes of his exposures—standing fully exposed. Danny studied her, fascinated. she had a hell of a body, and Danny had seen enough playmates of the month to make a value judgement. The shots had caught her from a variety of angles: front, side, behind—she had the cutest ass. But none of those were what made Danny want to faint. It just made him feel a little sick, to realize what was to become of her less than an hour after the pictures were taken.

It was the last shot that really got him.

The last shot with two people in it.

The shot of someone with a baseball bat creeping toward Star.

The someone who looked like a fully clothed Paulina Sanchez.


	10. Chapter Nine

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom, though I wish I did.**

**Warning: This story is rated M for violence, character death, language, drug use, alcohol, and mentioned sex. You have been warned.**

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Danny stepped from his darkroom and sat on the edge of his bed for a long time. He didn't spend the time entertaining profound thoughts. Only a single stupid question kept floating around in his brain—something about Paulina's batting average. He had never even known she liked baseball. Yeah, he just sat there and let the smell of the vinegar stop bath gel his brain cells. Finally, though, he stood and reentered the darkroom. His work wasn't done yet. He thought if he kept himself busy enough, long enough, he wouldn't ever have to think about the baseball bat and what Paulina had done with it. He was a master of self-deception. From birth, he had convinced himself that there was a wonderful reason for all the horrible things God allowed to happen in the world.

Danny cut out the eighth negative and inserted it into a negative holder, which he then placed into his enlarger. He flipped on his safelight and flipped off the overhead one. The safelight glowed a dull reddish orange, making him think he could be on Mars. He turned on his enlarger and focused onto his easel. The easel held the paper on which the print would be made. He focused the image to a size of eight-by-eleven. Pretty standard. Then he turned off the light inside the enlarger and took out his photograph paper, contained in a light-tight box. He inserted the paper into the easel and set the enlarger time for ten seconds, the enlarger light automatically went off. The image on the negative had now been burned onto the paper.

Danny removed the paper from the easel and put it in his developer tray, which was filled with Dektol, a common developer. He gently stirred it around for a minute, and in that sixty seconds the pictures fulled formed before his eyes. Nothing had changed. Star was still in the shower, and Paulina was still approaching her with bat in hand.

Danny put the print in the stop bath for thirty seconds, then the fixer for another two minutes. Finally he washed the print in water and set it down on a bunch of paper towels. He blotted up the moisture without care. He wanted to blot out what he was looking at.

He felt so confused.

Paulina could not have murdered Star, he thought. That would mean Paulina _was_ a murderer. But Paulina was a cheerleader, and Star was a cheerleader. No, that wasn't right. Star was a _dead _cheerleader. She was ashes. She was smoke. She had snorted one gram of cocaine too many and burned out the inside of her skull, before she drove off the face of a wicked cliff and caught on fire at the bottom.

It was the drugs, Danny kept telling himself. She had been high and made a wrong turn—just like poor Roger. But Danny would have had to be high to believe it. The truth may have come to him slowly, but when it did come, it hit with a wallop.

_Paulina smashed in Star's head in the shower. Then she dragged Star out to the Fiat, drove her up to the cliff, and rolled her over the edge._

Several things happened almost at once then.

The phone in Danny's bedroom rang.

Someone knocked at the front door.

Tucker stopped snoring and mumbled.

Danny flipped on his regular light and reached for the phone.

"Hello?" he said.

"Danny, it's me. I've got to talk to you."

"Paulina? What are you doing? How come you're not in bed?" He glanced at the clock beside his bed. "It's one in the morning."

"Are you alone?"

"No. I was a second ago. I think there's someone at the door. And Tucker's here."

"Who's at the door? What's Tucker doing there?"

"Tucker was asleep on my couch when I got home. I don't know who's at the door."

Paulina spoke urgently. "It's probably Sam. Get rid of her, then call me right back."

"What's wrong?" It was incredible, but for a moment he had forgotten all about the photo he had just developed. When he did remember, though, he didn't feel comfortable talking to Paulina on the phone. The person at the front door knocked again. Danny could hear Tucker getting up and asking who it was.

"I can't explain right now," Paulina said. "I think Star was murdered. It's crucial that I see you right away."

"Murdered?" Danny said. "What makes you think that?"

Paulina paused. "You better get the door."

"All right."

"Then call me right back. It's four-seven-two, five-five-two-two."

Danny wrote down the seven numbers. "All right."

Danny hung up the phone and went into the living room. Tucker had already opened the door to let Sam in. Sam looked anxious. Tucker looked drunk. Danny noticed for the first time the cans of beer beside the chair where Tucker had originally been.

"That bitch got fried," Tucker mumbled, sagging against the wall, unable to support himself.

"Don't say that," Danny said. "What are you doing here? What are you both doing here?"

"Danny?" his mother called from her room at the end of the hall.

"It's just Sam and Tucker," Danny called back. "They're leaving."

"I have to talk to you, Danny," Sam said nervously.

Tucker belched. "She burned. She's hamburger now."

"How many beers have you had?" Danny asked him.

Tucker gestured to the litter beside the chair. "How many are there?"

"You've got to go home," Danny said to Tucker. "Sam, drive him home. I can't talk to anybody right now."

"Tucker," Sam said. "Go out and get in my car. I'll be out in a few minutes."

"Roger got her," Tucker said, slurring his words. "I knew he would. Roger paid her back in full."

"So you're happy Star's dead," Danny said, disgusted.

Tucker grinned stupidly. "I'm content." He turned around and walked into the wall. Then he stumbled toward the door. "Where's my gun? I brought my gun."

"I think I saw it outside on the front lawn," Sam said, shifting uneasily from leg to leg. "Go get it, Tucker. Just wait for me by my car."

"Why did you bring your gun?" Danny asked as Tucker stumbled out onto the porch. Tucker tried to turn and answer but didn't make it. He tripped off a step and landed facedown on the grass. Sam closed the door on him.

"What's with you?" Danny asked.

"I drove Paulina home, you know," Sam said. "She was acting strange. I have to talk to you about it."

"What do you mean by strange? Her best friend just died. Is she supposed to act normal?"

"Why are you yelling at me?"

Danny thought it was a weird question. He was talking in a moderate tone. "I'm not yelling at you. I'm just tired. I want to go to bed."

Sam glanced toward his bedroom. The glow from his safelight was visible even with the overhead light on. "Are you developing pictures?"

"No."

"Why do you have your safelight on?"

"Look, can't this wait until tomorrow? I'm really tired."

Sam took a step toward his bedroom. "You did take the pictures of the cheerleaders in the showers. Let me see them. I have to see them."

"Why?"

Sam whirled on him. "You did take them!"

"Shh. You already said that. Yeah, so what? I took a bunch of pictures of empty showers."

"Why won't you let me see them then?"

"I haven't printed them yet," Danny said.

"Are you sure? You're lying. You wouldn't have the safelight on unless you were printing. I'll wait until you're done."

"You have to take Tucker home."

"To hell with Tucker. He's probably asleep on the lawn by now."

"Danny," Mrs. Fenton called.

"She's just leaving," Danny called back. He spoke to Sam. "Why are you so eager to see those pictures?"

"What pictures? You just said you haven't even printed them yet."

"You're not answering my question," Danny said.

"You're not answering mine," Sam snapped back. "What time did you set your exposures for?"

"Four o'clock, just like you told me." Danny stopped. It was an amazing coincidence, even to someone like him, that he should have just happened to catch Star and Paulina in such a delicate position. When he spoke next, he was whispering. "Why did you tell me four o'clock?"

Sam took a step back and lowered her head. "Because that's when they usually take their showers."

"I see. What do you mean Paulina was acting strange?"

"She was talking about Star like she didn't like her."

"I don't believe that," Danny said.

Sam glanced back toward his bedroom. "You're hiding something from me. Who just called?"

"No one."

"I was standing on the front porch when the phone rang. Was it Paulina who called?"

"No."

"Who then?"

"It was a wrong number. What exactly did Paulina say?"

It was Sam's turn to play ignorant. "Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

Sam became defiant. She raised her chin. "Stuff that made me think she might have killed Star."

Danny snorted. "Right, Paulina killed Star and admitted it to you. Why would she do that?"

"I didn't say she admitted it. I said she was acting weird." Sam started to push by him, to get to the bedroom. Danny grabbed her arm. Sam angrily shook free. "Are you going to let me see them or not?" she demanded.

"There's nothing to see," Danny said flatly.

Sam glared at him. "I might go to the police, you know."

Now Danny felt angry. "And tell them what?"

Sam shook her head, beginning to move toward the front door. "What you did was illegal. You could get in a lot of trouble."

"If I do, so will you."

"Yeah, well, thanks for nothing." Sam opened the door and glanced outside. "Tucker's gone."

"I guess he drove himself home," Danny said, standing behind her and scanning the front lawn.

"I doubt he makes it. Goodbye, Danny," she said, and slammed the door in his face.

"Great," Danny muttered to himself.

He returned to his bedroom and dialed Paulina's number. She answered on the first ring. She sounded upset, but still very much in control.

"I think I'm being set up for Star's murder," she said right away.

"Was Star murdered?" Danny asked.

"No," Paulina said. "At least I don't think so. I thought she had just snorted too much coke and mixed up turning right with turning left. But I found a note on my desk when I got home. It was in an envelope. It had my name on the outside. I'll read it to you. It says, 'We have pictures of what you did to Star.'"

"Do you know what it means?" Danny asked.

"No, I didn't do anything to Star. She was in a car crash. She was alone when she crashed." Paulina paused. "Do _you _know what it's about?"

Danny began to feel somewhat better. Unless Paulina knew about his pictures, which seemed unlikely, and was the most extraordinary liar in the world, she was probably innocent. On the other hand, if she was innocent, who had written the note? The person who had killed Star?

_This is all just a sick joke. It has to be._

"Do you recognize the handwriting on the note?" Danny asked.

"It's typed."

"Was your mom home before we left for Parvo?"

"No," Paulina said. "And the place was unlocked. Anyone could have come in and left the note on my desk. Danny, what does this mean? What pictures?"

Danny chewed on the whole of his life for a moment. He was nothing to look at. He was kind of a loser. On the other hand, Paulina was gorgeous. She was witty. She was perfect. Plus he liked her, and he was beginning to get the idea that she liked him. The totally impossible was becoming the vaguely possible. They might end up dating. She might end up being his girlfriend. But if he told her he had set up his camera in the showers so that he could take nude pictures of her and the other cheerleaders, then she would think he was a pervert. It was a dilemma. He couldn't tell her the truth, yet he had to help her.

_I'll tell her part of the truth._

"I have some pictures," he mumbled.

"_What?_ Pictures of what?"

"Ah—pictures of you and Star."

"Do you mean the Sugar Sisters pictures? The pictures you took in the home ec room?"

"Not exactly."

Paulina sounded exasperated. "Danny, what pictures do you have?"

He cleared his throat. "I have a picture of Star taking a shower at school and you sneaking up on her with a baseball bat."

Paulina didn't say anything for an eternity. When she finally did speak, her voice sounded strangely impressed. "You're kidding."

"No."

"Where did you get this picture? Did you take it?"

"No," he said quickly. "How could I?"

"Did it just fall into your lap?"

"No. Well, yeah, sort of. When I came home I found this roll of film in my bedroom." He added, "There was a note attached, like your note. It said for me to develop it."

"Danny, that sounds pretty lame."

"It's true," he said pitifully.

She took a breath. "I'm sorry. I'm not calling you a liar. I just don't know what's going on here. You understand. Is it just one picture?"

"There's only one that you're in," Danny said.

"Who's in the others?"

"Just Star."

"Is she naked in all of them?" Paulina asked.

"Well, she's taking a shower."

"Am I naked in the other one?"

"No. You have your clothes on."

Paulina snorted. "God, this is bizarre. Could you bring me the picture?"

"Now?"

Yeah."

"Don't you think maybe we should take the picture and your note to the police?" Danny asked.

"No. Are you crazy? They'll take one look at that picture and think I killed Star and drove her up to the cliff and dumped her off. I have to see it before I can decide what to do. Bring it to me right now."

"All right."

"Have you made any extra prints?" Paulina asked.

"No, just the one."

"OK. I'll be waiting for you, Danny."


End file.
